Shape transitions in anisotropic multicomponent lipid tubules

Shape transitions in anisotropic multicomponent lipid tubules

Blog Article

Abstract Ternary mixtures of saturated and unsaturated lipids together with cholesterol can be induced to phase separate by photo-peroxidation into lipid-ordered Lo and lipid-disordered Ld domains.Because these have different mechanical properties, the phase separation is accompanied by dramatic changes in morphology.This work considers a tubule composed of Ld jeff rosenstock buffalo phase with Lo phase inclusions that possess greater rigidity; this system has been shown experimentally by Yuan and coworkers to spontaneously adopt either banded or disc configurations following phase separation.The static behaviour of here inter-domain interactions is analyzed in each of these geometries by solving the linearized shape equations.

These calculations suggest a possible mechanism by which the two structures form.