Figure 26.

Structural instability and self-healing process of vesicle bilayer. At time $t=0$, the bilayer is assembled from $N_{ol}=2105$ and $N_{il}=770$ lipids and the vesicle volume is adjusted in such a way that the bilayer tension is close to zero, which leads to a compressed outer leaflet with negative leaflet tension ${\Sigma }_{ol}=-1.97k_{\mathrm{B}}T/d^2$: (a) At $t=780$ns, the compressed outer leaflet exhibits some kinks; (b) At $t=1720$ns, a cylindrical micelle has been formed from about 180 red-green lipids that were expelled from the outer leaflet; (c) At $t=2160$ns, lipids move towards the stretched inner leaflet along the contact line between micelle and bilayer; and (d) At $t=2710$ns, the self-healing process via stress-induced lipid exchange has been completed and 111 red-green lipids have moved to the inner leaflet. The restored bilayer undergoes no further flip-flops until the end of the simulations.