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Automated Lipid Bilayer Membrane Formation Using a Polydimethylsiloxane Thin Film
Published on: July 10, 2016
Pearling instabilities of membrane tubes with anchored polymers
1Department of Physics of Complex Systems, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Abstract:
We have studied the pearling instability induced on hollow tubular lipid vesicles by hydrophilic polymers with hydrophobic side groups along the backbone. The results show that the polymer concentration is coupled to local membrane curvature. The relaxation of a pearled tube is characterized by two different well-separated time scales, indicating two physical mechanisms. We present a model, which explains the observed phenomena and predicts polymer segregation according to local membrane curvature at late stages.
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