Model of a raft in both leaves of an asymmetric lipid bilayer

Abstract

We present a theory of inhomogeneities in the plasma membrane, or rafts, that can exist in both leaves of the plasma membrane. We note that although neither of the major phospholipid components of the outer leaf, sphingomyelin (SM) nor phosphatidylcholine (PC), evinces a tendency to form phases characterized by nonzero curvature, one of the major components of the inner leaf, phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), displays a strong tendency to do so whereas the other, phosphatidylserine (PS), does not. Therefore, we posit that the concentration difference of PS and PE couples to height fluctuations of the plasma membrane bilayer. This brings about a microemulsion in the inner leaf. Coupling of the concentration difference between PS and PE in the inner leaf and SM and PC in the outer leaf propagates the microemulsion to that leaf as well. The characteristic size of the inhomogeneities is equal to the square-root of the ratio of the bending modulus of the bilayer to its surface tension, a size which is ~100 nm for the plasma membrane. If the coupling between leaves were to be provided by the interchange of cholesterol, then our model raft would consist of SM and cholesterol in the outer leaf and PS and cholesterol in the inner leaf floating in a sea of PC and PE in both leaves.