Hybrid lipids increase nanoscale fluctuation lifetimes in mixed membranes

A recently proposed ternary mixture model is used to predict fluctuation domain lifetimes in the one phase region. The membrane is made of saturated, unsaturated, and hybrid lipids that have one saturated and one unsaturated hydrocarbon chain. The hybrid lipid is a natural linactant which can reduce the packing incompatibility between saturated and unsaturated lipids. The fluctuation lifetimes are predicted as a function of the hybrid lipid fraction and the fluctuation domain size. These lifetimes can be increased by up to three orders of magnitude compared to the case of no hybrids. With hybrid, small length scale fluctuations have sizable amplitudes even close to the critical temperature and, hence, benefit from enhanced critical slowing down. The increase in lifetime is particularly important for nanometer scale fluctuation domains where the hybrid orientation and the other lipids composition are highly coupled.