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Originally published as Biophys J. BioFAST on March 13, 2006.
doi:10.1529/biophysj.105.062778
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Biophysical Journal 90:4104-4118 (2006)
© 2006 The Biophysical Society

Effect of Hydrophobic Mismatch on Phase Behavior of Lipid Membranes

Elizabeth J. Wallace * {dagger} {ddagger}, Nigel M. Hooper * {dagger} and Peter D. Olmsted {ddagger}

* School of Biochemistry & Microbiology, {dagger} Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Leeds Institute of Genetics, Health and Therapeutics, {ddagger} School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to P. D. Olmsted, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom. Tel.: 44-113-343-3830; E-mail: p.d.olmsted{at}leeds.ac.uk.

We investigate the competing effects of hydrophobic mismatch and chain stretching on the morphology and evolution of domains in lipid membranes via Monte Carlo techniques. We model the membrane as a binary mixture of particles that differ in their preferred lengths, with the shorter particles mimicking unsaturated nonraft lipids and the longer particles mimicking saturated raft lipids. We find that phase separation can be induced upon increasing either the ratio Formula of the hydrophobic surface tension J to the compressibility modulus Formula. J/Formula determines the decay length for thickness changes. When this decay length is larger than the system size the membrane remains mixed. Furthermore, increasing the thickness relaxation time can induce transient phase separation.




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A. J. Wagner, S. Loew, and S. May
Influence of Monolayer-Monolayer Coupling on the Phase Behavior of a Fluid Lipid Bilayer
Biophys. J., December 15, 2007; 93(12): 4268 - 4277.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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