Formation and Stability of Lipid Membrane Nanotubes

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 11; no. 9; pp. 9558 - 9565
• Main Authors: Bahrami, Amir Houshang, Hummer, Gerhard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 26.09.2017
• Subjects: Membrane Lipids - chemistry; Molecular Dynamics Simulation; Monte Carlo Method; Nanotechnology - methods; Nanotubes - chemistry; Nanotubes - ultrastructure; Thermodynamics; internal volume; MARTINI molecular dynamics; Monte Carlo simulations; lipid nanotube; nanotube stability; endoplasmic reticulum

Lipid membrane nanotubes are abundant in living cells, even though tubules are energetically less stable than sheet-like structures. According to membrane elastic theory, the tubular endoplasmic reticulum (ER), with its high area-to-volume ratio, appears to be particularly unstable. We explore how t...