Phase Separation in Lipid Membranes Induced by the Elastic Properties of Components

The role of the elastic properties of multicomponent lipid membranes during their phase separation has been studied. The phase diagram of a three-component membrane, which consists of cholesterol and unsaturated lipids, has been derived. The calculation has been performed using the theory of regular solutions, taking into account the contribution of the mechanical energy to the parameters of pair interactions between the components. It has been shown that the difference in the spontaneous curvatures of the components plays the major role in phase separation. The effective bending modulus has been calculated for the membrane whose components have different bending rigidities. DOI: 10.1134/S0021364011080066