Pearling of Lipid Vesicles Induced by Nanoparticles

摘要

One of the challenges, in using phospholipid vesicles to emulate the membranes of living cells, is to create shape transformations. Here we study in single-component vesicles the shape transformation known as pearling. It is known that bacteria without division machinery can proliferate by forming protrusions from the cell, which gradually evolve to a string of round progeny cells.In eukaryotic cells, tubular protrusions transform into periodic chains of "pearls" upon disrupting the actin cytoskeleton. Alternatively, pearling in neuronal axons and blood vessels can be induced by osmotic stress. Seeking a general understanding, we note that these shape changes are remarkably similar to the classical Rayleigh instability in which a cylindrical fluid stream breaks into droplets.