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Lipid rafts are nanoscopic assemblies of sphingolipids, cholesterol, and specific membrane proteins. They are believed to underlie the experimentally observed lateral heterogeneity of eukaryotic plasma membranes and implicated in many cellular processes, such as signaling and trafficking. Ternary model membranes consisting of saturated lipids, unsaturated lipids, and cholesterol are common proxies because they exhibit phase coexistence between a liquid-ordered (lo) and liquid-disordered (ld) phase and an associated critical point. However, plasma membranes are also asymmetric in terms of lipid type, lipid abundance, leaflet tension, and corresponding cholesterol distribution, suggesting that rafts cannot be examined separately from questions about elasticity, curvature torques, and internal mechanical stresses. Unfortunately, it is challenging to capture this wide range of physical phenomenology in a single model that can access sufficiently long length- and time scales. Here we extend the highly coarse-grained Cooke model for lipids, which has been extensively characterized on the curvature-elastic front, to also represent raft-like lo/ld mixing thermodynamics. In particular, we capture the shape and tie lines of a coexistence region that narrows upon cholesterol addition, terminates at a critical point, and has coexisting phases that reflect key differences in membrane order and lipid packing. We furthermore examine elasticity and lipid diffusion for both phase separated and pure systems and how they change upon the addition of cholesterol. We anticipate that this model will enable significant insight into lo/ld phase separation and the associated question of lipid rafts for membranes that have compositionally distinct leaflets that are likely under differential stress—like the plasma membrane.
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This content will become publicly available on May 9, 2026
Micron-scale, liquid-liquid phase separation in ternary lipid membranes containing DPPE
Micron-scale, liquid-liquid phase separation occurs in membranes of living cells, with physiological consequences. To discover which lipids might support phase separation in cell membranes and how lipids might partition between phases, miscibility phase diagrams have been mapped for model membranes. Typically, model membranes are composed of ternary mixtures of a lipid with a high melting temperature, a lipid with a low melting temperature, and cholesterol. Phospholipids in ternary mixtures are chosen primarily to favor stable membranes (phosphatidylcholines and sphingomyelins) or add charge (phosphatidylglycerols and phosphatidylserines). A major class of phospholipids missing from experimental ternary diagrams has been the phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs). PE-lipids constitute up to 20 mol% of common biological membranes, where they influence protein function and facilitate membrane fusion. These biological effects are often attributed to PE’s smaller headgroup, which leads to higher monolayer spontaneous curvatures and higher melting temperatures. Taken alone, the higher melting points of saturated PE-lipids imply that liquid-liquid phase separation should persist to higher temperatures in membranes containing PE-lipids. Here, we tested that hypothesis by substituting a saturated PE-lipid (DPPE) for its corresponding PC-lipid (DPPC) in two well-studied ternary membranes (DOPC/DPPC/cholesterol and DiphyPC/DPPC/cholesterol). We used fluorescence microscopy to map full ternary phase diagrams for giant vesicles over a range of temperatures. Surprisingly, we found no micron-scale, liquid-liquid phase separation in vesicles of the first mixture (DOPC/DPPE/cholesterol), and only a small region of liquid-liquid phase separation in the second mixture (DiphyPC/DPPE/cholesterol). Instead, coexisting solid and liquid phases were widespread, with the solid phase enriched in DPPE. An unusual feature of these ternary membranes is that solid and liquid-ordered phases can be distinguished by fluorescence microscopy, so tie-line directions can be estimated throughout the phase diagram, and transition temperatures to the 3-phase region (containing a liquid-disordered phase, a liquid-ordered phase, and a solid phase) can be accurately measured.
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- PAR ID:
- 10628554
- Publisher / Repository:
- bioRxiv
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Institution:
- bioRxiv
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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