Title:	Phase behavior of two-component lipid membranes: Theory and experiments
Authors:	Kamal, Md. Arif Pal, Antara Raghunathan, V.A. Rao, Madan
Issue Date:	May-2012
Publisher:	American Physical Society
Citation:	Physical Review E, 2012, Vol.85, 051701
Abstract:	The structure of the ripple phase of phospholipid membranes remains poorly understood in spite of a large number of theoretical studies, with many experimentally established structural features of this phase unaccounted for. In this article we present a phenomenological theory of phase transitions in single- and two-component achiral lipid membranes in terms of two coupled order parameters: a scalar order parameter describing lipid chain melting, and a vector order parameter describing the tilt of the hydrocarbon chains below the chain-melting transition. This model reproduces all the salient structural features of the ripple phase, providing a unified description of the phase diagram and microstructure. In addition, it predicts a variant of this phase that does not seem to have been experimentally observed. Using this model we have calculated generic phase diagrams of two-component membranes. We have also determined the phase diagram of a two-component lipid membrane from x-ray diffraction studies on aligned multilayers. This phase diagram is found to be in good agreement with that calculated from the model.
Description:	Open Access
URI:	http://hdl.handle.net/2289/5091
ISSN:	1539-3755 1550-2376 (Online)
Alternative Location:	http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.5899 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.85.051701
Copyright:	2012 The American Physical Society
Appears in Collections:	Research Papers (SCM)

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