Thermodynamic Approach to Phase Coexistence in Ternary Phospholipi-Cholesterol Mixtures

Abstract

We introduce a simple and predictive model for determining the phase stability of ternary phospholipid-cholesterol mixtures. Assuming that competition between the liquid and gel order of the phospholipids is the main driving force behind lipid segregation, we derive a Gibbs free-energy of mixing, based on the thermodynamic properties of the lipids main transition. A numerical approach was devised that enable the fast and efficient determination of the ternary diagrams associated with our Gibbs free-energy. The computed phase coexistence diagram of DOPC/DPPC/cholesterol reproduces well known features for this system at 10\circ C, as well as its evolution with temperature.

References in corpus (2)

• Lateral phase separation in mixtures of lipids and cholesterol systems
• Stable patterns of membrane domains at corrugated substrates

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Phase behavior and morphology of multicomponent liquid mixtures
• Physical aspects of heterogeneities in multi-component lipid membranes
• Designing morphology of separated phases in multicomponent liquid mixtures
• Membrane lateral structure: The influence of immobilized particles on domain size
• Interplay between self-assembly and phase separation in a polymer-complex model
• Theory of polymers in binary solvent solutions: mean-field free energy and phase behavior
• A machine learning assessment of the two states model for lipid bilayer phase transitions