Confinement-induced shape transitions in multilamellar vesicles

Abstract

Morphologies of a vesicle confined in a spherical vesicle were explored experimentally by fast confocal laser microscopy and numerically by a dynamically-triangulated membrane model with area-difference elasticity. The confinement was found to induce several novel shapes of the inner vesicles, that had been never observed in unilamellar vesicles: double and quadruple stomatocytes, slit vesicle, and vesicles of two or three compartments with various shapes. The simulations reproduced the experimental results very well and some of the shape transitions can be understood by a simple theoretical model for axisymmetric shapes.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Membrane simulation models from nm to $\mu$m scale
• Morphogenesis of membrane invaginations in spherical confinement

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Formation of polyhedral vesicles and polygonal membrane tubes induced by banana-shaped proteins
• Snap buckling of a confined thin elastic sheet
• Shape transformations of toroidal vesicles
• Morphological changes of amphiphilic molecular assemblies induced by chemical reaction
• Binding of Curvature-Inducing Proteins onto Biomembranes
• Construction of nuclear envelope shape by a high-genus vesicle with pore-size constraint
• Shape transitions of high-genus fluid vesicles
• Toroidal membrane vesicles in spherical confinement
• Flexoelectric fluid membrane vesicles in spherical confinement