title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Bioelectromagnetics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Tržaška 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Samo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Penič
authors.forename: Aleš
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Iglič
authors.forename: Isak
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bivas
authors.forename: Miha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fošnarič
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004548:Elasticity; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry*; D008081:Liposomes / Q000737:chemistry*; D008560:Membrane Fluidity; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D013696:Temperature; D013816:Thermodynamics
chemical_list: D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D008081:Liposomes