Lipid exchange between membranes.

The exchange of lipid molecules between vesicle bilayers in water and a monolayer forming at the water surface was investigated theoretically within the framework of thermodynamics. The total number of exchanged molecules was found to depend on the bilayer curvature as expressed by the vesicle radius and on the boundary condition for exchange, i.e., whether during exchange the radius or the packing density of the vesicles remains constant. The boundary condition is determined by the rate of flip-flop within the bilayer relative to the rate of exchange between bi- and monolayer. If flip-flop is fast, exchange is independent of the vesicle radius; if flip-flop is slow, exchange increases with the vesicle radius. Available experimental results agree with the detailed form of this dependence. When the theory was extended to exchange between two bilayers of different curvature, the direction of exchange was also determined by the curvatures and the boundary conditions for exchange. Due to the dependence of the boundary conditions on flip-flop and, consequently, on membrane fluidity, exchange between membranes may partially be regulated by membrane fluidity.