Spontaneous evolution of equilibrium morphology in phospholipid-cholesterol monolayers

Competition between intradomain electrostatic repulsions and interdomain line tension leads to domain shape transitions in phase-separating lipid monolayers. The question remains if these morphologies are energy minima or are kinetically trapped metastable states. We show the reversible evolution of uniform width stripe domains from polydisperse semicircular domains in monolayers of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), hexadecanol (HD) or palmitic acid (PA), and dihydrocholesterol (DChol). The initial semicircular domains grow at a fixed 2:1 DPPC:HD (or PA) stoichiometry, depleting the liquid phase of HD, leaving behind a liquid enriched in DPPC and DChol. At higher surface pressures, the remaining DPPC precipitates onto existing domains, decreasing the ratio of line tension to the square of the dipole density difference, λ/μ(2). Theory predicts that, as λ/μ(2) decreases, circular domains reversibly transform to uniform width stripes as the minimum energy structure. Measuring the stripe width provides the first estimates of λ/μ(2) at liquid condensed–liquid expanded phase coexistence.