Fig. 3: Complete axisymmetric engulfment of nanodroplets (green) followed by division of nanovesicle (purple-gray) into two nested daughter vesicles.
From: Different pathways for engulfment and endocytosis of liquid droplets by nanovesicles
a Nanovesicle formed by a lipid bilayer with Nol = 5400 lipids in the outer and Nil = 4700 lipids in the inner leaflet. At time t = 0, the droplet is partially engulfed by the vesicle membrane, which forms an open membrane neck. At t = 0.3, the neck closes and the droplet becomes completely engulfed. The neck then undergoes fission at t = 2 μs, thereby generating a small intraluminal vesicle around the droplet. More details on the shape evolution are provided by the Movies S1 and S2; and b Bilayer with Nol = 5500 lipids in the outer and Nil = 4600 lipids in the inner leaflet. The membrane neck now closes at t = 4 μs and undergoes fission at t = 9 μs, again generating a small intraluminal vesicle around the droplet. More details on this shape evolution are provided by the Movies S3 and S4, which also demonstrates that the morphology with two nested vesicles remains unchanged up to 30 μs. In both (a) and (b), the nanovesicles have a size of 37 nm, the droplets have a diameter of 11.2 nm, and the vesicle volume is equal to ν = 0.6 during the whole endocytic process.
