Thermal shape fluctuations of fluid-phase phospholipid-bilayer membranes and vesicles

✍ Scribed by Michael Wortis; Marija Jarić; Udo Seifert

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 869 KB
• Volume: 71
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-7322
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-7322(97)00011-1

✦ Synopsis

After an introductory review of the physics of lipid-bilayer selfassembly, we discuss the origins of the area-difference elasticity model, a Landau-like theory which describes the mesoscale shape mechanics of bilayer sheets and vesicles. We introduce the notion of a phase diagram for mechanically stable low-energy vesicle shapes. We summarize what is now known about these shapes and about the transitions between them induced by changing control parameters, especially emphasizing the importance of metastability. In a final section devoted to recent work on thermal fluctuations, we outline a program for calculating normal mode energies and eigenshapes.