Related papers: Phase transitions in biological systems with many …

We present theory and simulation of simultaneous chemical demixing and phase ordering in a polymer-liquid crystal mixture in conditions where isotropic-isotropic phase separation is metastable with respect to isotropic-nematic phase…

The phase-separation occurring in a system of mutually interacting proteins that can bind on specific sites of a chromatin fiber is here investigated. This is achieved by means of extensive Molecular Dynamics simulations of a simple polymer…

Fluid mixtures, such as the cellular cytoplasm and synthetic DNA nanostars, can spontaneously compartmentalize into many coexisting phases through liquid-liquid phase separation. Despite the diversity of fluid structures that emerge from…

Phase separation within polymer networks plays a central role in shaping the structure and mechanics of both synthetic materials and living cells, including the formation of biomolecular condensates within cytoskeletal networks. Previous…

Inside living cells are complex mixtures of thousands of components. It is hopeless to try to characterise all the individual interactions in these mixtures. Thus, we develop a statistical approach to approximating them, and examine the…

Surface tension governed by differential adhesion can drive fluid particle mixtures to sort into separate regions, i.e., demix. Does the same phenomenon occur in confluent biological tissues? We begin to answer this question for epithelial…

Biomolecules composed of a limited set of chemical building blocks can co-localize into distinct, spatially segregated compartments known as biomolecular condensates. While many condensates are known to form spontaneously via phase…

Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as a fundamental mechanism underlying intracellular organization, with evidence for it being reported in numerous different systems. However, there is a growing concern regarding the lack of…

Liquid mixtures can separate into phases with distinct composition. This phenomenon has recently come back to prominence due to its role in complex biological liquids, such as the cytoplasm, which contain thousands of components. For simple…

We consider a system of clusters made of elementary building blocks, monomers, and evolving via collisions between diffusing monomers and immobile composite clusters. In our model, the cluster-monomer collision can lead to the attachment of…

Liquid-liquid phase separation has recently emerged as an important topic in the context of cellular organization. Within this context, there are multiple poorly understood features; for instance hints of critical behavior in the plasma…

During overflow metabolism, cells excrete glycolytic byproducts when growing under aerobic conditions in a seemingly wasteful fashion. While potentially advantageous for microbes with finite oxidative capacity, its role in higher organisms…

To maintain homeostasis, living cells process information with networks of interacting molecules. Traditional models for cellular information processing have focused on networks of chemical reactions between molecules. Here, we describe how…

If a binary liquid mixture, composed of two alternative species with equal amounts, is quenched from a high temperature to a low temperature, below the critical point of demixing, then the mixture will phase separate through a process known…

Droplet formation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatiotemporal organisation of biomolecules in cells. However, classical descriptions of droplet dynamics based on passive liquid-liquid phase separation cannot capture the…

Spatially uniform electric fields have been used to induce instabilities in liquids and polymers, and to orient and deform ordered phases of block-copolymers. Here we discuss the demixing phase transition occurring in liquid mixtures when…

Phase-separated biomolecular condensates containing proteins and RNAs can assemble into higher-order structures by forming thermodynamically stable interfaces between immiscible phases. Using a minimal model of a protein/RNA interaction…

Compared to pure fluids, binary mixtures display a very diverse phase behavior, which depends sensitively on the parameters of the microscopic potential. Here we investigate the phase diagrams of simple model mixtures by use of a…

Liquid-liquid phase separation is the mechanism underlying the formation of biomolecular condensates. Disordered protein regions often drive phase separation, but molecular interactions of disordered protein regions are not well understood,…

Liquid-liquid phase separation plays a major role in the formation and maintenance of various membrane-less subcellular structures in the cytoplasm and nucleus of cells. Biological condensates contain enhanced concentrations of proteins and…