Ship in a bottle: confinement-promoted self-assembly.

ABSTRACT: Understanding self-assembly in confined spaces is essential to fully understand molecular processes in confined cell compartments and will offer clues on the behaviour of simple confined systems, such as protocells and lipid-vesicle based devices. Using a model system composed of lipid vesicles, a membrane impermeable receptor and a membrane-permeable ligand, we have studied in detail how compartmentalization modulates the interaction between the confined receptor and its ligand. We demonstrate that confinement of one of the building blocks stabilizes complex self-assembled structures to the extent that dilution leads, counterintuitively, to the formation of long range assemblies. The behaviour of the system can be explained by considering a confinement factor that is analogous, although n

SUBMITTER: Lopez-Fontal E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5885595 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature