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Updated: Jan 6, 2026

Pulling Membrane Nanotubes from Giant Unilamellar Vesicles
Published on: December 7, 2017
Membrane stretching elasticity and thermal shape fluctuations of nearly spherical lipid vesicles
Isak Bivas1, Nicholay S Tonchev1
1Institute of Solid State Physics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 72 Tzarigradsko chaussee blvd., Sofia 1784, Bulgaria.
Abstract:
One of the most widely used methods for determination of the bending elasticity modulus of model lipid membranes is the analysis of the shape fluctuations of nearly spherical lipid vesicles. The theoretical basis of this analysis is given by Milner and Safran [Phys. Rev. A 36, 4371 (1987)0556-279110.1103/PhysRevA.36.4371]. In their theory the stretching effects are not considered. In the present study we generalized their approach including the stretching effects deduced after application of the statistical mechanics to vesicles.
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