Fig. 2.

Phospholipid-driven growth leads to a filamentous shape transition and vesicle division. (A) Large, multilamellar 90∶10 oleate∶DOPA vesicles, labeled with an encapsulated soluble dye, are initially spherical. (B) Upon mixing with a 100-fold excess of unlabeled oleate vesicles, the mixed vesicles rapidly grow into long, filamentous vesicles. (C) The fragile filamentous vesicles then readily divide into small daughter vesicles upon the application of gentle shear forces (see Methods). (Scale bar: 30 μm.) (D) Time course showing the shape transformation of a labeled 90∶10 oleate∶DOPA vesicle upon addition of unlabeled oleate vesicles. Time in seconds. (Scale bar: 5 μm.)