Abstract
Osmotic shrinkage of giant egg-lecithin vesicles was observed by phase-contrast microscopy. The vesicles remained or became spherical when shrinking. Small and thick-walled vesicles formed visible fingers attached to the sphere. The water permeability of the single bilayer was found to be 41 μm/s. A variety of observations indicate that osmosis induces a parallel lipid flow between the monolayers of the bilayer, leading to a strong positive spontaneous curvature. They also suggest the formation of mostly submicroscopic daughter vesicles. The estimated coupling constant, 2. 10–6 mole/mole, is large enough to be biologically significant.
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© 1980 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Elwenspoek, M., Boroske, E., Helfrich, W. (1980). Osmotic Shrinkage of Giant Egg-Lecithin Vesicles. In: Helfrich, W., Heppke, G. (eds) Liquid Crystals of One- and Two-Dimensional Order. Springer Series in Chemical Physics, vol 11. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67848-6_77
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67848-6_77
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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