Universality in the Dynamics of Vesicle Translocation through a Hole.

ABSTRACT

We analyze the translocation process of a spherical vesicle, made of a membrane and incompressible fluid, through a hole smaller than the vesicle size, driven by pressure difference ΔP. We show that such a vesicle shows certain universal characteristics, which are independent of the details of the membrane elasticity (i) there is a critical pressure ΔPc below which no translocation occurs; (ii) ΔPc decreases to zero as the vesicle radius R0 approaches the hole radius a, satisfying the scaling relation ΔPc ∼ (R0 - a)3/2; and (iii) the translocation time τ diverges as ΔP decreases to ΔPc, satisfying the scaling relation τ ∼ (ΔP - ΔPc)-1/2.