Abstract
The cellular membrane is a complex structure playing an important role in a large number of processes. It consists of two layers that are highly asymmetric in composition and function.
Heterogeneities (nanodomains) develop in lipid membranes and their distribution is the subject of our research. This work focuses on the investigation of coupling between nanodomains found in the upper and lower leaflet of the lipid bilayer.
There are diverse situations based on forces formed in between the nanodomains. The forces are either attractive, repulsive or too weak to influence their mutual positions.
We used MC simulations to study the resolution of MC-FRET towards inter-leaflet coupling. Its sensitivity depends on several parameters as the affinity of fluorescent probes towards the nanodomains or the bilayer thickness.
We varied these parameters computationally and found out that the method is the most sensitive when donors and acceptors have either high or low affinity to nanodomains, however it can be quite complicated to find probes fulfilling those conditions. For probes with more homogenous distribution the case of donors and acceptors in different layers provides better results.