Author/Editor		Ziherl, P; Svetina, S
Title		Flat and sigmoidally curved contact zones in vesicle-vesicle adhesion
Type		članek
Source		PNAS
Vol. and No.		Letnik 104, št. 3
Publication year		2007
Volume		str. 761-5
Language		eng
Abstract		Using the membrane-bending elasticity theory and a simple effective model of adhesion, we study the morphology of lipid vesicle doublets. In the weak adhesion regime, we find flat-contact azisymmetric doublets, whereas at large adhesion strengths, the vesicle aggregates are nonaxisymmetric and characterized by a sigmoidally curved, S-shaped contact zone with a single invagination and a complementary evagination on each vesicle. The sigmoid-contact doublets agree very well with the experimentally observed shapes of erythrocyte aggregates. Our results show that in identical vesicles with large to moderate surface-to-volume ratio, the sigmoid-contact shape is the only bound morphology. We also discuss the role of sigmoid contacts in the formation of multicellular aggregates such as erythrocyte rouleaux.
Descriptors		MEMBRANES, ARTIFICIAL BIOPHYSICS LIPID BILAYERS MEMBRANE FUSION MODELS, THEORETICAL