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Atomic Force Microscopy Imaging and Force Spectroscopy of Supported Lipid Bilayers

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Calculation of Liquid-Disordered/Liquid-Ordered Line Tension from Pairwise Lipid Interactions.

J Huang¹, S Hiraki², G W Feigenson³

¹Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas Tech University, Box 41051, Lubbock, Texas 79409, United States.

The Journal of Physical Chemistry. B

|May 22, 2020

Summary

Line tension, the energy penalty for lipid bilayer interfaces, is crucial for domain formation. Pairwise lipid interactions effectively model experimentally measured line tensions, indicating their significant contribution to this phenomenon.

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Area of Science:

Biophysics
Materials Science

Background:

Line tension governs lipid domain size transitions from nanometers to micrometers.
Understanding lipid-protein interactions is key to membrane organization.

Purpose of the Study:

To connect pairwise lipid interaction energies with experimentally measured line tensions.
To develop a computational method for mapping lipid phase boundaries.

Main Methods:

Utilized compositional differences between liquid-disordered (Ld) and liquid-ordered (Lo) phases.
Employed a mean-field theory model for computational analysis.
Mapped Ld + Lo phase boundaries and thermodynamic tielines.

Main Results:

Experimentally measured Ld/Lo line tension is effectively modeled by the sum of pairwise interactions at the interface.
Pairwise lipid interactions are a major contributor to line tension.

Conclusions:

The study successfully links microscopic lipid interactions to macroscopic line tension.
This approach provides a framework for predicting phase behavior in lipid mixtures.