Insights into the self-reproduction of oleate vesicles

In view of the importance of vesicles as models for early cells, several groups have started work looking for conditions under which vesicles can undergo growth and division. Evidence for growth and division has been obtained with the help of ferritin-labelled vesicles; furthermore, it has been shown that in such processes the vesicle size distribution is largely conserved. In both cases, the data suggest that the process under study is mainly characterized by vesicle growth and eventually division into daughter vesicles. However, direct evidence for vesicle division has not been obtained. In this paper, mostly based on freeze-fracture electron microscopy, we describe conditions under which for the first time division intermediates can be trapped in the form of twin vesicles. This finding, together with supporting dynamic light scattering and fluorescence investigations, permits us to establish some additional points in the mechanism of vesicle self-reproduction.