Premium
Lipid vesicle formation: the transition from open disks to closed shells
Author(s) -
Fromherz Peter,
Ruppel Diether
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(85)80211-8
Subject(s) - vesicle , sonication , lipid bilayer , chemistry , lecithin , bilayer , relaxation (psychology) , fragmentation (computing) , biophysics , materials science , crystallography , membrane , chromatography , biology , biochemistry , ecology , neuroscience
The relaxation of a lecithin suspension after sonication is studied by electron microscopy. It is shown that vesicles are formed in a two‐stage process: Fragmentation into open sheets of bilayer under the action of sound and subsequent spontaneous closure of the planar disks into closed shells. A prerequisite of the discovery is a slowing down of the relaxation process by the addition of a moderate amount of cholate as an ‘edge‐actant’.