Vesicles as osmotically stressed capsules

Abstract

Vesicular capsules are used to carry biochemicals in biology and liposome technology. Being water-permeable with differing interior and exterior compositions, they are necessarily under osmotic stress. Recent studies have underlined the different thermodynamic behavior of osmotically stressed vesicles in comparison to vesicles subjected to a hydrostatic pressure as studied earlier. Through their different behavior one gains access to the parameters affecting the osmotic swelling of vesicles, such as the membrane-permeability coefficients of solute molecules.