Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Impact Of Membrane Tension On Phase Separation And Solid Domain Properties In Model Multicomponent Vesicles, Dong Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

Multicomponent phospholipid membranes provide an ideal model to study the complex phase behavior of biological membranes. Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUV) formed by mixtures of two or more phospholipids have particular merit as model membranes because of their simplicity, operability, and ease of viewing phase separation and testing membrane mechanics. Until the research in this thesis, biochemistry and biophysical studies of phase separation in phospholipid membranes primarily addressed the influence of membrane composition on the transition temperatures and domain shapes. This thesis focuses on a commonly neglected variable - membrane tension, analogous to pressure in bulk materials, as an important parameter …