Related papers: Phase transitions in biological systems with many …
Living organisms rely on molecular networks, such as gene circuits and signaling pathways, for information processing and robust decision-making in crowded, noisy environments. Recent advances show that interacting biomolecules…
Here we investigate how the positions of a condensed phase can be controlled by using concentration gradients of a regulator that influences phase separation. We consider a mean field model of a ternary mixture where a concentration…
Communication between cells is realized by exchange of biochemical substances. Due to internal organization of living systems and variability of external parameters, the exchange is heavily influenced by perturbations of various parameters…
Inspired by recent experiments, we present a phase-field model of microphase separation in an elastomer swollen with a solvent. The imbalance between the molecular scale of demixing and the mesoscopic scale beyond which elasticity operates…
Phase separation of various materials has been studied for one and a half centuries. In the last two decades, phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids has received enormous attention, due its relevance to cellular functions. However,…
In active systems, whose constituents have non-equilibrium dynamics at local level, fluid-fluid phase separation is widely observed. Examples include the formation of membraneless organelles within cells; the clustering of self-propelled…
We investigate the phase separation mechanism of bosonic binary mixtures in spatially-fragmented traps, evidencing the emergence of phases featuring a different degree of mixing. The analysis is initially carried out by means of a…
We present a thermodynamically consistent model describing the dynamics of a multi-component mixture where one enzyme component catalyzes a reaction between other components. We find that the catalytic activity alone can induce phase…
Many biological, physical, and social interactions have a particular dependence on where they take place. In living cells, protein movement between the nucleus and cytoplasm affects cellular response (i.e., proteins must be present in the…
Phase separation is a fairly common physical phenomenon with examples including the formation of water droplets from humid air (fog, rain), the separation of a crystalline structure from an isotropic material such as a liquid or even the…
In frameworks of the phenomenological approach we analyze of the phase diagram of mixed compounds. We obtain space groups of symmetry of the real structures as result of phase transition from close-packed degenerate structure. The theory of…
Biomolecular condensates provide distinct chemical environments, which control various cellular processes. The diffusive dynamics and chemical kinetics inside phase-separated condensates can be studied experimentally by fluorescently…
Motivated by intracellular phase separation, we theoretically investigate how molecular orientation and multi-component nature affect phase behavior. We construct a minimal model for a ternary mixture composed of isotropic (I), anisotropic…
Biomolecular condensates are small droplets forming spontaneously in biological cells via phase separation. They play a role in many cellular processes, but it is unclear how cells control them. Cellular regulation often relies on…
We numerically investigate the dependence of range of attractive potential on the phase separation of 2-D binary systems. Through extensive simulations and analysis, we show that when the range of attractive interactions approaches the…
Biomolecular self-assembly spatially segregates proteins with a limited number of binding sites (valence) into condensates that coexist with a dilute phase. We develop a many-body lattice model for a three-component system of proteins with…
Self-assembly processes in biological and synthetic biomolecular systems are often governed by the spatial separation of biochemical processes. While previous work has focused on optimizing self-assembly through fine-tuned reaction…
Biomolecular condensates form on timescales of seconds in cells upon environmental or compositional changes. Condensate formation is thus argued to act as a mechanism for sensing such changes and quickly initiating downstream processes,…
Phase-separated liquid condensates can spatially organize and thereby regulate chemical processes. However, the physicochemical mechanisms underlying such regulation remain elusive as the intramolecular interactions responsible for phase…
Phase separation is the thermodynamic process that explains how droplets form in multicomponent fluids. These droplets can provide controlled compartments to localize chemical reactions, and reactions can also affect the droplets' dynamics.…