Confined Multilamellae Prefer Cylindrical Morphology

By evaporating a drop of lipid dispersion we generate the myelin morphology often seen in dissolving surfactant powders. We explain these puzzling nonequilibrium structures using a geometric argument: The bilayer repeat spacing increases and thus the repulsion between bilayers decreases when a multi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2005-06
Main Authors: Jung-Ren, Huang, Ling-Nan Zou, Witten, Thomas A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Curvature
Dehydration
Lamellar structure
Lipids
Mathematical morphology
Morphology
Myelin
Structural stability
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:By evaporating a drop of lipid dispersion we generate the myelin morphology often seen in dissolving surfactant powders. We explain these puzzling nonequilibrium structures using a geometric argument: The bilayer repeat spacing increases and thus the repulsion between bilayers decreases when a multilamellar disk is converted into a myelin without gain or loss of material and with number of bilayers unchanged. Sufficient reduction in bilayer repulsion can compensate for the cost in curvature energy, leading to a net stability of the myelin structure. A numerical estimate predicts the degree of dehydration required to favor myelin structures over flat lamellae.
ISSN:2331-8422