A computational study of lateral phase separation in biological membranes

TL;DR

This paper develops and compares finite element models for simulating lateral phase separation in biological membranes, focusing on complex shapes and the effects of model type on coarsening dynamics and equilibrium.

Contribution

It introduces an unfitted finite element method for phase-field models on complex membrane shapes, enabling flexible simulations without explicit surface parametrization.

Findings

Conservative and non-conservative models produce different coarsening behaviors.

Membrane shape influences the coarsening dynamics.

Models converge to similar equilibrium states.

Abstract

Conservative and non-conservative phase-field models are considered for the numerical simulation of lateral phase separation and coarsening in biological membranes. An unfitted finite element method is devised for these models to allow for a flexible treatment of complex shapes in the absence of an explicit surface parametrization. For a set of biologically relevant shapes and parameter values, the paper compares the dynamic coarsening produced by conservative and non-conservative numerical models, its dependence on certain geometric characteristics and convergence to the final equilibrium