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- Title
ELECTROFUSION OF MODEL LIPID MEMBRANES VIEWED WITH HIGH TEMPORAL RESOLUTION.
- Authors
RISKE, KARIN. A.; BEZLYEPKINA, NATALYA; LIPOWSKY, REINHARD; DIMOVA, RUMIANA
- Abstract
The interaction of electric fields with lipid membranes and cells has been extensively studied in the last decades. The phenomena of electroporation and electrofusion are of particular interest because of their widespread use in cell biology and biotechnology. Giant vesicles, being of cell size and convenient for microscopy observations, are the simplest model of the cell membrane. However, optical microscopy observation of effects caused by electric DC pulses on giant vesicles is difficult because of the short duration of the pulse. Recently this difficulty has been overcome in our lab. Using a digital camera with high temporal resolution, we were able to access vesicle fusion dynamics on a sub-millisecond time scale. In this report, we present some observations on electrodeformation and –poration of single vesicles followed by an extensive study on the electrofusion of vesicle couples. Finally, we suggest an attractive approach for creating multidomain vesicles using electrofusion and present some preliminary results on the effect of membrane stiffness on the fusion dynamics.
- Subjects
BILAYER lipid membranes; ELECTROFUSION; BIOLOGICAL membranes; BIOELECTROCHEMISTRY; CYTOLOGICAL techniques; ELECTRIC fields; BIOPHYSICS
- Publication
Biophysical Reviews & Letters, 2006, Vol 1, Issue 4, p387
- ISSN
1793-0480
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1142/S179304800600032X