title: Freezing of stressed bilayers and vesicles.
abstract: We show using a minimalistic theoretical framework that phase transition decoupling in lipid bilayers is caused by a nonuniform stress profile due to an asymmetric distribution of lipids between the two leaflets. Applying this framework to vesicles, we demonstrate that their anomalous freezing is also caused by a stress asymmetry, but that this is due to lipid tail extension on freezing. Finally, we predict a previously unknown dependence of surface tension on temperature, find the phenomenon also in coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations, and suggest that it might have relevance in thermosensitive protein gating.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan. antti@cheme.kyoto-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lamberg
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Taniguchi
mesh_terms: D005615:Freezing; D008051:Lipid Bilayers / Q000737:chemistry*; D008055:Lipids / Q000737:chemistry*; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry; D013500:Surface Tension; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D008055:Lipids; D011506:Proteins