Membrane phase-separation is a mechanism that biological membranes often use to locally concentrate specific lipid species in order to organize diverse membrane processes. Phase separation has also been explored as a tool for the design of liposomes with heterogeneous and spatially organized surfaces. These “patchy” liposomes are promising platforms for delivery purposes, however their design and optimization through experimentation can be expensive and time-consuming. We developed a computationally efficient method based on the surface Cahn–Hilliard phase-field model to complement experimental investigations in the design of patchy liposomes. The method relies on thermodynamic considerations to set the initial state for numerical simulations. We show that our computational approach delivers not only qualitative pictures, but also accurate quantitative information about the dynamics of the membrane organization. In particular, the computational and experimental results are in excellent agreement in terms of lipid domain area fraction, total lipid domain perimeter over time and total number of lipid domains over time for two different membrane compositions (DOPC:DPPC with a 2:1 M ratio with 20% Chol and DOPC:DPPC with a 3:1 M ratio with 20% Chol). Thus, the computational phase-field model informed by experiments has a considerable potential to assist in the design of liposomes with spatially organized surfaces, thereby containing the cost and time required by the design process.

膜相分离是生物膜经常用来局部浓缩特定脂质种类以组织各种膜过程的机制。相分离也已被探索为设计具有异质性和空间组织性表面的脂质体的工具。这些“斑片”脂质体是用于递送目的的有前途的平台，但是通过实验进行的设计和优化可能是昂贵且费时的。我们基于表面Cahn-Hilliard相场模型开发了一种计算有效的方法，以补充斑驳脂质体设计中的实验研究。该方法依赖于热力学因素来设置数值模拟的初始状态。我们证明了我们的计算方法不仅可以提供定性图像，还可以提供准确的图像。有关膜组织动力学的定量信息。特别是，对于两种不同的膜组合物（DOPC：DPPC，比率为2：1 M），在脂质结构域面积分数，随时间变化的总脂质结构域周长和随时间变化的脂质结构域总数方面，计算和实验结果非常一致。含20％的Chol和DOPC：DPPC，比例为3：1 M和20％的Chol）。因此，通过实验得知的计算相场模型具有很大的潜力来协助设计具有空间组织的表面的脂质体，从而包含了设计过程所需的成本和时间。