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Updated: Oct 11, 2025

Pulling Membrane Nanotubes from Giant Unilamellar Vesicles
Published on: December 7, 2017
Membrane tension
Pei-Chuan Chao1, Frederick Sachs2
1Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, United States.
Abstract:
The cell membrane serves as a barrier that restricts the rate of exchange of diffusible molecules. Tension in the membrane regulates many crucial cell functions involving shape changes and motility, cell signaling, endocytosis, and mechanosensation. Tension reflects the forces contributed by the lipid bilayer, the cytoskeleton, and the extracellular matrix. With a fluid-like bilayer model, membrane tension is presumed uniform and hence propagated instantaneously. In this review, we discuss techniques to measure the mean membrane tension and how to resolve the stresses in different components and consider the role of bilayer heterogeneity.
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