Link to bioRxiv paper:

http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.11.05.370189v1?rss=1

Authors: Girard, M., Bereau, T.

Abstract:

The lipid raft hypothesis postulates that cell membranes possess some degree of lateral organization. The last decade has seen a large amount of experimental evidence for rafts. Yet, the underlying mechanism remains elusive. One hypothesis that supports rafts relies on the membrane to lie near a critical point. While supported by experimental evidence, the role of regulation is unclear. Using both a lattice model and molecular dynamics simulations, we show that lipid regulation of a many-component membrane can lead to critical behavior over a large temperature range. Across this range, the membrane displays a critical composition due to finite-size effects. This mechanism provides a rationale as to how cells tune their composition without the need for specific sensing mechanisms. It is robust and reproduces important experimentally verified biological trends: membrane-demixing temperature closely follows cell growth temperature, and the composition evolves along a critical manifold. The simplicity of the mechanism provides a strong argument in favor of the critical membrane hypothesis.

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