Long-living channels of well defined radius opened in lipid bilayers by polydisperse, hydrophobically-modified polyacrylic acids.

Vial, Florent; Oukhaled, Abdel Ghani; Auvray, Loic; Tribet, Christophe · Soft Matter · 2006

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

In the presence of random amphiphilic polymers devoid of secondary structure, lipid membranes become leaky to albumin and dextran (fluorescence of giant unilamellar vesicles) and their conductance (black lipid films) shows the transient opening of channels of typical radius 1-5 nm.