Characterizing the Liquid-liquid Phase Co-existence in Biomembrane: Insights from Local Non-affine Deformation and Topological Rearrangements

Abstract

Lateral heterogeneities in biomembranes play a crucial role in various physiological functions of the cell. Such heterogeneities lead to demixing of lipid constituents and formation of distinct liquid domains in the membrane. We study lateral heterogeneities in terms of topological rearrangements of lipids to identify the liquid-liquid phase coexistence in model membranes. By quantifying the degree of non-affine deformation associated with individual lipid, we are able to characterize the liquid ordered (Lo) and liquid disordered (Ld) phases in model lipid bilayers, without any prior knowledge about the chemical identity of the lipids. We explore the usage of this method on all atom and coarse-grained lipid bilayer trajectories. This method is helpful in defining the instantaneous Lo-Ld domain boundaries in complex multi-component bilayer systems.\n\nThe characterization is also used to highlight the effect of line-active molecules on the phase boundaries and domain mixing. Overall, we propose a framework to explore the molecular origin of spatial and dynamical heterogeneity in biomembrane systems, which can be exploited not only in computer simulations but also in experiments.