Membrane-Based Nanotechnology and Drug Delivery - Membrane Biophysics, Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering - page 133

Fig. 6.3 Proposed dendrimer-lipid vesicles ( upper panel ). Breaking of the membrane is schema-
tized in the bottom panel. This figure with its description has been taken with the publisher's
permission from [ 17 ]

Fig. 6.4 Schematic cross-
section of the proposed
dendrimer-lipid vesicle. The
number of dendrimer end-
groups ( black circles ) = M .
The number of lipid head
groups in contact with the
dendrimer surface (inner ring
of gray circles ) = m .This

figure with its description
hasbeentakenwiththe
publisher's permis-
sion from [ 17 ]

Here, φ is considered to be the energy per bond present in the interaction pic-
ture (see Fig. 6.4 ) which falls in the range of 12-30 kJ/mol for a typical hydro-
gen bond. r and R are dendrimer's inner and outer radius respectively. This free
energy (Eq. 6.6 ) includes some key aspects of membrane energetics, but is seri-
ously deficient in considering a few other important contributions, as explained in
Chap. 5 . Considering the identical interaction mechanisms in the membrane as dis-
cussed in Chap. 5 , which consider the mechanical (membrane elastic and lipid cur-