Striking morphological similarities found between superstructures of a wide variety of seemingly unrelated crystalline membrane systems hint at the existence of a common formation mechanism. Resembling systems such as multiwalled carbon nanotubes, bacterial protein shells, or peptide nanotubes, the self-assembly of SDS/β-cyclodextrin complexes leads to monodisperse multilamellar microtubes. We uncover the mechanism of this hierarchical self-assembly process by time-resolved small- and ultrasmall-angle x-ray scattering. In particular, we show that symmetric crystalline bilayers bend into hollow cylinders as a consequence of membrane line tension and an anisotropic elastic modulus. Starting from single-walled microtubes, successive nucleation of new cylinders inside preexisting ones drives an inward growth. As both the driving forces that underlie the self-assembly behavior and the resulting morphologies are common to systems of ordered membranes, we believe that this formation mechanism has a similarly general applicability.

中文翻译：

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通过成核向内生长：有序膜的多尺度自组装。

在许多看似无关的晶体膜系统的上层结构之间发现了惊人的形态相似性，这暗示着存在共同的形成机制。SDS /β-环糊精复合物的自组装类似于多壁碳纳米管，细菌蛋白壳或肽纳米管之类的系统，可形成单分散的多层微管。我们通过时间分辨的小角度和超小角度X射线散射揭示了这种分层自组装过程的机制。特别地，我们显示出对称的结晶双层由于膜线张力和各向异性弹性模量而弯曲成空心圆柱体。从单壁微管开始，新的圆筒在先存的圆筒中连续成核，从而向内生长。