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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: ACS Nano. 2009 Jun 17;3(7):1886–1896. doi: 10.1021/nn900173e

Figure 5.

Figure 5

(A) Flattened-dendrimer model and (B) dendrimer-encased vesicle model of dendrimer lipid complexes. These models depict the interaction of a single dendrimer with a lipid bilayer and suggest a fundamental structure of local dendrimer-lipid interaction. Aggregation of the flattened dendrimers may induce sufficient curvature to create a separated vesicle and separated vesicles may readily aggregate. (C) ITC determined binding stoichiometries for the dendrimer-lipid complexes compared with the expected stoichiometry of these models. Small and medium dendrimers (< G6) flatten over the membrane and induce slight membrane curvature and/or flocculation of vesicles. Larger dendrimers (> G6) become encased by a lipid vesicle. (A) G5 and (B) G7 are colored red. The hydrophilic head groups are colored blue and the hydrophobic tails are colored grey. This data is also shown in Table S2.