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Updated: Jul 29, 2026

Pulling Membrane Nanotubes from Giant Unilamellar Vesicles
Published on: December 7, 2017
Coiling instability of multilamellar membrane tubes with anchored polymers
I Tsafrir1, M A Guedeau-Boudeville, D Kandel
1Department of Physics of Complex Systems, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76 100, Israel.
Abstract:
We study experimentally a coiling instability of cylindrical multilamellar stacks of phospholipid membranes, induced by polymers with hydrophobic anchors grafted along their hydrophilic backbone. Our system is unique in that coils form in the absence of both twist and adhesion. We interpret our experimental results in terms of a model in which local membrane curvature and polymer concentration are coupled. The model predicts the occurrence of maximally tight coils above a threshold polymer occupancy. A proper comparison between the model and experiment involved imaging of projections from simulated coiled tubes with maximal curvature and complicated torsions.
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