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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Spontaneous Formation and Rearrangement of Artificial Lipid Nanotube Networks as a Bottom-Up Model for Endoplasmic Reticulum
Published on: January 22, 2019
Cationic lipid absorption on titanium: a counterion-mediated bilayer-to-lipid-tubule-network transition
Jing Yuan1, Emily R Parker, Linda S Hirst
1MARTECH, Department of Physics, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA.
Abstract:
By carefully tuning the screening effects of monovalent salt in solution, it is possible to control the formation of different lipid morphologies on a titanium dioxide substrate. A transition from an absorbed vesicle layer to fluid lipid bilayers is observed as a function of monovalent salt concentration in solution, and, above a threshold salt concentration, a network of lipid tubules with a fascinating distorted-hexagonal structure is formed in two dimensions on the substrate. We present fluorescence microscopy data for these different morphologies, confirming the connectivity and fluidity of the bilayers and tubules.
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