Verlag des Forschungszentrums Jülich
JUEL-2997
Seifert, Udo
Fluid membranes - theory of vesicle conformations
168 S., 1995
Membranes as studied in this treatise consist of a bilayer of lipid molecules that are composed
of a hydrophilic head and two hydrophobic hydrocarbon chains. When introduced into an
aqueous environment, these amphiphilic molecules aggregate spontaneously into two monomolecular
layers held together by weak non-covalent forces due to the hydrophobic effect.
These membranes form large encapsulating "bags" called vesicles because open sheet-like
conformations would involve a large energy along the hydrophobic edges. Even though the
membrane is only a few nanometers thick, the size of these vesicles can reach macroscopic
dimensions of up to 100 micrometers. Video microscopy reveals both an extreme softness
of the membrane since thermally excited shape fluctuations are strong enough to become
visible and an amazing variety of different shapes, among which shape transformations can
be induced by changing parameters like the temperature or osmotic conditions.
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