title: Comparative study of the dynamics of lipid membrane phase decomposition in experiment and simulation.
abstract: Phase decomposition in lipid membranes has been the subject of numerous investigations by both experiment and theoretical simulation, yet quantitative comparisons of the simulated data to the experimental results are rare. In this work, we present a novel way of comparing the temporal development of liquid-ordered domains obtained from numerically solving the Cahn-Hilliard equation and by inducing a phase transition in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs). Quantitative comparison is done by calculating the structure factor of the domain pattern. It turns out that the decomposition takes place in three distinct regimes in both experiment and simulation. These regimes are characterized by different rates of growth of the mean domain diameter, and there is quantitative agreement between experiment and simulation as to the duration of each regime and the absolute rate of growth in each regime.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physik, Microfluidics Group, Universität Augsburg, Universitätsstrasse 10, 86159 Augsburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Burger
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fraunholz
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leirer
authors.forename: Ronald H W
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Hoppe
authors.forename: Achim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wixforth
authors.forename: Malte A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Peter
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Franke
mesh_terms: D008563:Membrane Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D053835:Unilamellar Liposomes / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D008563:Membrane Lipids; D053835:Unilamellar Liposomes