Fig 6. Equilibration in presence of “water-lined” pores.

(A) Vesicle showing the four “water-lined” pores (front, back, left, right) that were introduced into the self-assembled vesicle membrane to allow equilibration of lipid densities. The representation of vesicle lipids is same as in Fig 4, except for the wlipids (lipids with water particle type, yellow). (B) Cross section of one of the pores at the start (left) and the end (right) of a 200 ns equilibration. Note the tails of the wlipids (yellow) occupy the interior of the membrane at the start whereas they point away from the bilayer into the bulk solvent at the end. Also note the head groups of lipids that can be seen in the membrane interior, absent in left panel, showing the lipid exchange between the two leaflets. (C) The percent change in lipid composition of the IV leaflet of the vesicle during the equilibration. (D) Time evolution of APL of the CP and IV leaflets measured using Voronoi analysis on a patch of bilayer taken from the equilibrating vesicle.