Issue 25, 2015

Bending elasticity of vesicle membranes studied by Monte Carlo simulations of vesicle thermal shape fluctuations

Abstract

The membrane bending stiffness of nearly spherical lipid vesicles can be deduced from the analysis of their thermal shape fluctuations. The theoretical basis of this analysis [Milner and Safran, Phys. Rev. A: At., Mol., Opt. Phys., 1987, 36, 4371–4379] uses the mean field approximation. In this work we apply Monte Carlo simulations and estimate the error in the determination of the bending stiffness due to the approximations applied in the theory. It is less than 10%. The method presented in this work can also be used to determine the changes of the bending stiffness of biological membranes due to their chemical and/or structural modifications.

Graphical abstract: Bending elasticity of vesicle membranes studied by Monte Carlo simulations of vesicle thermal shape fluctuations

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Feb 2015
Accepted
16 Apr 2015
First published
20 Apr 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Soft Matter, 2015,11, 5004-5009

Author version available

Bending elasticity of vesicle membranes studied by Monte Carlo simulations of vesicle thermal shape fluctuations

S. Penič, A. Iglič, I. Bivas and M. Fošnarič, Soft Matter, 2015, 11, 5004 DOI: 10.1039/C5SM00431D

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