Pressure-temperature phase diagram for shapes of vesicles: A coarse-grained molecular dynamics study

Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations are performed to obtain the phase diagram for shapes of a vesicle with a variation in temperature and pressure difference across the membrane. Various interesting vesicle shapes are found, in particular, a series of shape transformations are observed for a vesicle with an initial spherical shape, which changes to a prolate shape, then an oblate shape, and then a stomatocyte shape, with either increasing temperature or decreasing pressure difference across the membrane.