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. 1981 Apr;34(1):95–109. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3495(81)84839-4

Osmotic shrinkage of giant egg-lecithin vesicles.

E Boroske, M Elwenspoek, W Helfrich
PMCID: PMC1327456  PMID: 7213933

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 micrometers/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) mol/mol, is large enough to be biologically significant.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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