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Electrofusion of Lipid Bilayers

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Electroporation and Electrofusion in Cell Biology

Abstract

Electrostimulated fusion (electrofusion) is one of the promising methods in the study of the somatic hybridization of cells. In spite of a great number of studies in which this phenomenon is used, its mechanism has not been elucidated. Electrofusion, and generally fusion, presupposes the joining of cell membranes and the volumes limited by them. Therefore, for analyzing the mechanism of electrofusion, it is reasonable to turn not only to the universal phenomenon of membrane fusion which occurs under the action of polyethylene glycol (Pontecorvo, 1975), Sendai virus (Poste and Pasternak, 1978), and a host of other fusogens, but also to the in vivo course of biogenesis of muscular fibers (Bischoff, 1978) and of fertilization (Bedford and Cooper, 1978). At the subcellular level, membrane fusion is the key event in the processes of endocytosis and exocytosis (Belitser and Zaalishvili, 1983).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The A. N. Frumkin Institute of Electrochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 117071, Moscow, USSR

    Grigory B. Melikyan & Leonid V. Chernomordik

Authors
  1. Grigory B. Melikyan
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  2. Leonid V. Chernomordik
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, FRG

    Eberhard Neumann

  2. American Red Cross, Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Arthur E. Sowers

  3. Science Applications International Corporation, McLean, Virginia, USA

    Carol A. Jordan

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© 1989 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Melikyan, G.B., Chernomordik, L.V. (1989). Electrofusion of Lipid Bilayers. In: Neumann, E., Sowers, A.E., Jordan, C.A. (eds) Electroporation and Electrofusion in Cell Biology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2528-2_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2528-2_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-2530-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-2528-2

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