Biophysical Journal 60: 825-844 (1991)
© 1991 the Biophysical Society

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Käs, J Articles by Sackmann, E Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Käs, J Articles by Sackmann, E

Shape transitions and shape stability of giant phospholipid vesicles in pure water induced by area-to-volume changes.

Physik Department, Technische Universität München, Germany.

ABSTRACT

Shape transformations of vesicles of dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (= DMPC) and palmitoyloleylphosphatidylcholine (= POPC) in ion-free water were induced by changing the area-to-volume ratio via temperature variations. Depending on the pretreatment we find several types of shape changes for DMPC (in pure water) at increasing area-to-volume ratio: (a) budding transitions leading to the formation of a chain of vesicles at further increase of the area-to-volume ratio, (b) discocyte-stomatocyte transitions, (c) reentrant dumbbell-pear-dumbbell transitions, and (d) spontaneous blebbing and/or tether formation of spherical vesicles. Beside these transitions a more exotic dumbbell-discocyte transition (e) was found which proceeded via local instabilities. Pears, discocytes, and stomatocytes are stable with respect to small temperature variations unless the excess area is close to values corresponding to limiting shapes of budded vesicles where temperature variations of less than or equal to 0.1 degree C lead to spontaneous budding to the inside or the outside. For POPC we observed only budding transitions to the inside leading either to chains of vesicles or to distributions of equally sized daughter vesicles protruding to the inside of the vesicle. Preliminary experiments concerning the effect of solutes are also reported. The first three types of shape transitions can be explained in terms of the bilayer coupling model assuming small differences in thermal expansivities of the two monolayers. This does not hold for the observed instabilities close to the limiting shapes.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Nicolini, A. Celli, E. Gratton, and R. Winter Pressure Tuning of the Morphology of Heterogeneous Lipid Vesicles: A Two-Photon-Excitation Fluorescence Microscopy Study Biophys. J., October 15, 2006; 91(8): 2936 - 2942. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. J. Wallace, N. M. Hooper, and P. D. Olmsted The Kinetics of Phase Separation in Asymmetric Membranes Biophys. J., June 1, 2005; 88(6): 4072 - 4083. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Viallat, J. Dalous, and M. Abkarian Giant Lipid Vesicles Filled with a Gel: Shape Instability Induced by Osmotic Shrinkage Biophys. J., April 1, 2004; 86(4): 2179 - 2187. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. A. Riske and H.-G. Dobereiner Diacylglycerol-Rich Domain Formation in Giant Stearoyl-Oleoyl Phosphatidylcholine Vesicles Driven by Phospholipase C Activity Biophys. J., October 1, 2003; 85(4): 2351 - 2362. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				F. Nomura, M. Nagata, T. Inaba, H. Hiramatsu, H. Hotani, and K. Takiguchi Capabilities of liposomes for topological transformation PNAS, February 15, 2001; (2001) 41419098. [Abstract] [Full Text]

				E. Farge, D. M. Ojcius, A. Subtil, and A. Dautry-Varsat Enhancement of endocytosis due to aminophospholipid transport across the plasma membrane of living cells Am J Physiol Cell Physiol, March 1, 1999; 276(3): C725 - C733. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				X. Michalet and D. Bensimon Observation of Stable Shapes and Conformal Diffusion in Genus 2 Vesicles Science, August 4, 1995; 269(5224): 666 - 668. [Abstract] [PDF]

				F. Nomura, M. Nagata, T. Inaba, H. Hiramatsu, H. Hotani, and K. Takiguchi Capabilities of liposomes for topological transformation PNAS, February 27, 2001; 98(5): 2340 - 2345. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]