Nanomechanics of membrane tubulation and DNA assembly

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Abstract
We report an interesting regime of tubule formation in multilamellar membrane vesicles. An optically trapped bead is used to apply a localized subpicoNewton force on a cationic vesicle to form a membrane tubule. The force extension curves reveal a saturation phase, with the tubule length extending up to tens of microns, beyond a threshold force 0.6±0.2 pN . We then use the tubule as a sensor for monitoring the dynamics of charge induced DNA integration on cationic membrane vesicles. Our results may also have applications in the development of nanowires and nanofluidic devices.