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Updated: May 18, 2026

Imaging of Extracellular Vesicles by Atomic Force Microscopy
Published on: September 11, 2019
Nonlinear elastic model for faceting of vesicles with soft grain boundaries
Rastko Sknepnek1, Monica Olvera de la Cruz
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. sknepnek@gmail.com
Abstract:
We use an elastic model to explore faceting of solid-wall vesicles with elastic heterogeneities. We show that faceting occurs in regions where the vesicle wall is softer, such as areas of reduced wall thicknesses or concentrated in crystalline defects. The elastic heterogeneities are modeled as a second component with reduced elastic parameters. Using simulated annealing Monte Carlo simulations we obtain the vesicle shape by optimizing the distributions of facets and boundaries. Our model allows us to reduce the effects of the residual stress generated by crystalline defects, and reveals a robust faceting mechanism into polyhedra other than the icosahedron.
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