Wrapping of Microparticles by Floppy Lipid Vesicles

Lipid membranes, the barrier defining living cells and many of their sub-compartments, bind to a wide variety of nano- and micro-meter sized objects. In the presence of strong adhesive forces, membranes can strongly deform and wrap the particles, an essential step in crossing the membrane for a vari...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-09
Main Authors: Spanke, Hendrik T, Style, Robert W, François-Martin, Claire, Feofilova, Maria, Eisentraut, Manuel, Kress, Holger, Agudo-Canalejo, Jaime, Dufresne, Eric R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adhesion tests
Adhesive strength
Adhesives
Lipids
Membranes
Microparticles
Particle interactions
Phase diagrams
Physical properties
Vesicles
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Summary:Lipid membranes, the barrier defining living cells and many of their sub-compartments, bind to a wide variety of nano- and micro-meter sized objects. In the presence of strong adhesive forces, membranes can strongly deform and wrap the particles, an essential step in crossing the membrane for a variety of health and disease-related processes. A large body of theoretical and numerical work has focused on identifying the physical properties that underly wrapping. Using a model system of micron-sized colloidal particles and giant unilamellar lipid vesicles with tunable adhesive forces, we measure a wrapping phase diagram and make quantitative comparisons to theoretical models. Our data is consistent with a model of membrane-particle interactions accounting for the adhesive energy per unit area, membrane bending rigidity, particle size, and vesicle radius.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2007.03620