Author/Editor     Majhenc, Janja; Božič, Bojan
Title     Characteristics of phospholipid vesicles enhanced by adhesion on an annular region
Type     članek
Vol. and No.     Letnik 99, št. 5
Publication year     2019
Volume     str. 052416-1 - 052416-11
ISSN     2470-0045
Language     eng
Abstract     Phospholipid vesicle membranes are simple models used to study the mechanical properties of cell membranes. The shapes of flaccid vesicles can exhibit very diverse forms. When researching very flaccid vesicles, axisymmetrical vesicles with the membranes adhered to an annular region can also be observed. A phase diagram of such shapes was studied for different values of the vesicle parameters, i.e., the adhesion constant, the vesicle volume-to-membrane ratio, the volume ratio between the polar and the equatorial parts, and the equilibrium difference between the membrane monolayers. The energies of the annular shapes with respect to the vesicle parameters were closely examined and compared with the energies of the discocyte and stomatocyte shapes. The requirements for the existence of such annular shapes were also given for adhesion-free vesicle membranes. The results show that the adhesion between the lipid bilayers stabilizes the observed shapes, which belong to the locally stable branch of the annular vesicles. The value obtained for the adhesion constant of the SOPC membrane is 3X10^{-9}J/m^{2}.
Keywords     phospholipid vesicle
cell membranes
adhesion
fosfolipidni vezikli
celične membrane
adhezija