Interaction of Vesicles: Adhesion, Fusion and Multicompartment Systems Formation

In this review, interactions of selected vesicles, induced either by molecular recognition or by electrostatic interactions, for the simulation of cell-cell and cell-drug interaction processes are discussed. In order of increasing complexity, examples of vesicles adhesion are presented at first, followed by recognition experiments in which fusion takes place. This differentiation in behavior was primarily attributed to the structural features of interacting vesicular pairs primarily affected by concentration and lateral phase separation of the anchored recognizable groups. In certain cases, fusion is accompanied by multicompartmentalization of the obtained aggregates. In connection with the formation of these multicompartment systems, it was proposed that an analogous mechanism could be operating in the evolution of eukaryotes during the symbiosis of prokaryotes.