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Updated: May 22, 2026

Reconstitution of Septin Assembly at Membranes to Study Biophysical Properties and Functions
Published on: July 28, 2022
Lipid exchange between membranes: effects of membrane surface charge, composition, and curvature
Tao Zhu1, Zhongying Jiang, Yuqiang Ma
1National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Abstract:
Intermembrane lipid exchange is critical to membrane functions and pharmaceutical applications. The exchange process is not fully understood and it is explored by quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitor method in this research. It is found that intermembrane lipid exchange is accelerated with the decrease of vesicle size and the increase of charge and liquid crystalline lipid composition ratio. Vesicle adsorption rate, membrane lateral pressure gradient, and lipid lateral diffusion coefficient are inferred to be critical in deciding the lipid exchange kinetics between membranes. Besides that, the membrane contact situation during lipid exchange is also studied. The maximum total membrane contact area is found to increase with the decrease of vesicle size, charged and liquid crystalline lipid composition ratio. A competition mechanism between the vesicle adsorption rate and the intermembrane lipid exchange rate was proposed to control the maximum total membrane contact area.
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