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Updated: Mar 13, 2026

Monitoring the Effect of Osmotic Stress on Secretory Vesicles and Exocytosis
Published on: February 19, 2018
Osmotic Effects Induced by Pore-Forming Agent Nystatin: From Lipid Vesicles to the Cell
Špela Zemljič Jokhadar1, Bojan Božič1, Luka Kristanc1
1Institute of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Abstract:
The responses of Chinese hamster ovary epithelial cells, caused by the pore-forming agent nystatin, were investigated using brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. Different phenomena, i.e., the detachment of cells, the formation of blebs, the occurrence of "cell-vesicles" and cell ruptures, were observed. These phenomena were compared to those discovered in giant lipid vesicles. A theoretical model, based on the osmotic effects that occur due to the size-discriminating nystatin transmembrane pores in lipid vesicles, was extended with a term that considers the conservation of the electric charge density in order to describe the cell's behavior. The increase of the cellular volume was predicted and correlated with the observed phenomena.
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