Deformations of lipid vesicles induced by attached spherical particles

Wrapping of a spherical colloidal particle, located inside and outside a lipid vesicle, by the membrane which forms the wall of the vesicle is investigated. The process is studied for vesicles of different geometries: prolate, oblate, stomatocytes. We focus on the bending energy change and shape transformations induced by binding the membrane to the spherical particles. The ground-state shapes of vesicles are calculated within the framework of a Helfrich curvature energy functional.