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Biophys. J. BioFAST: First Published March 13, 2006. doi:10.1529/biophysj.105.062778
© 2006 by the Biophysical Society.

A more recent version of this article appeared on June 1, 2006.
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MEMBRANES

Effect of hydrophobic mismatch on phase behaviour of lipid membranes

Elizabeth Jayne Wallace 1, Nigel M. Hooper 1 and Peter D. Olmsted 1*

1 University of Leeds

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: p.d.olmsted{at}leeds.ac.uk.

Submitted on March 11, 2005
Revised on April 4, 2005
Accepted on 28 December 2005


  Abstract
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 non-raft lipids and the longer particles mimicking saturated raft lipids. We find that phase separation can be induced upon increasing either the ratio J/{kappa} of the hydrophobic surface tension J to the compressibility modulus {kappa}, which has units of length, or J2/{kappa}, which has units of energy. J/{kappa} 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.

Key Words: chain stretching, hydrophobic mismatch, membrane domains, phase separation, rafts, simulation




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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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Copyright © 2006 by the Biophysical Society.