Polymer-induced tubulation in lipid vesicles
arXiv:0804.3329 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.158103
Abstract
A mechanism of extraction of tubular membranes from a lipid vesicle is presented. A concentration gradient of anchoring amphiphilic polymers generates tubes from bud-like vesicle protrusions. We explain this mechanism in the framework of the Canham-Helfrich model. The energy profile is analytically calculated and a tube with a fixed length, corresponding to an energy minimum, is obtained in a certain regime of parameters. Further, using a phase-field model, we corroborate these results numerically. We obtain the growth of tubes when a polymer source is added, and the bud-like shape after removal of the polymer source, in accordance with recent experimental results.
References in corpus (6)
- Formation and Interaction of Membrane Tubes
- Fluid-membrane tethers: minimal surfaces and elastic boundary layers
- Pearling Instabilities of Membrane Tubes with Anchored Polymers
- Model for curvature-driven pearling instability in membranes
- Dynamic model and stationary shapes of fluid vesicles
- Shape instabilities in vesicles: a phase-field model