Lipid Droplet Biogenesis & Lipophagy Simulator

Lipid droplets are dynamic organelles that bud from the endoplasmic reticulum as neutral-lipid lenses at seipin-marked sites, then grow and shrink through a real physical coarsening process — Ostwald ripening — layered on top of active enzymatic turnover. This simulator renders a population of droplets in 3D whose radii evolve under a Lifshitz–Slyozov–Wagner ripening term, DGAT-driven triglyceride synthesis that favours larger droplets, and ATGL-mediated surface lipolysis that perilipin coating can suppress. Adjust synthesis, lipolysis, perilipin coverage and nucleation rate independently, fire a fasting pulse to watch hormone-sensitive lipolysis strip the perilipin coat and shrink the pool, and track live droplet count, total lipid volume, mean radius and net volume flux as the population reorganises.