A model of vesicle tubulation and pearling induced by adsorbing particles

We study the basic theoretical model of a deformable vesicle immersed in a solution of particles that can adsorb onto one of the two surfaces of a membrane. The model consists of an adsorption energy gain for the adsorbing particles and the Canham-Helfrich membrane bending energy, in which the spont...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Soft matter 2015-05, Vol.11 (2), p.454-46
Main Authors: Su, Yu-Cheng, Chen, Jeff Z. Y
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adsorption
Bending
Free energy
Gain
Mathematical analysis
Membranes
Surface chemistry
Tubes
Vesicles
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Summary:We study the basic theoretical model of a deformable vesicle immersed in a solution of particles that can adsorb onto one of the two surfaces of a membrane. The model consists of an adsorption energy gain for the adsorbing particles and the Canham-Helfrich membrane bending energy, in which the spontaneous curvature is coupled with the adsorption area. We demonstrate that bud, pearling, and tube conformations can be stabilized after minimizing the free energy and that the pearling-tubulation transition has the characteristics of an abrupt structural transition. A transition path sequence is found, similar to the observation in a recent experiment, for the tubulation and pearling transition of a vesicle immersed in a nanoparticle solution.
ISSN:1744-683X
1744-6848
DOI:10.1039/c5sm00565e