Related papers: Liquid phase separation controlled by pH
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as one of the important paradigms in the chemical physics as well as biophysics of charged macromolecular systems. We elucidate an equilibrium phase separation mechanism based on charge regulation,…
Phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins is important for the formation of membraneless organelles, or biomolecular condensates, which play key roles in the regulation of biochemical processes within cells. In this work, we…
The phase behavior of membrane proteins stems from a complex synergy with the amphiphilic molecules required for their solubilization. We show that ionization of a pH-sensitive surfactant, LDAO, bound to a bacterial photosynthetic protein,…
Living and engineered systems rely on the stable coexistence of two interspersed liquid phases. Yet surface tension drives their complete separation. Here we show that stable droplets of uniform and tuneable size can be produced through…
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 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…
Proteins and nucleic acids can spontaneously self-assemble into membraneless droplet-like compartments, both in vitro and in vivo. A key component of these droplets are multi-valent proteins that possess several adhesive domains with…
We propose a continuum theory of the liquid-liquid phase separation in an elastic network where phase-separated microscopic droplets rich in one fluid component can form as an interplay of fluids mixing, droplet nucleation, network…
Phase separation plays an role in determining the self-assembly of biological and soft-matter systems. In biological systems, liquid-liquid phase separation inside a cell leads to the formation of various macromolecular aggregates. The…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is key to understanding aqueous two-phase systems (ATPS) arising throughout cell biology, medical science, and the pharmaceutical industry. Controlling the detailed morphology of phase-separating compound…
Globular proteins as well as recently synthesized colloids engineered with differently charged surface regions have in common a reduced bonding valence and a complex interaction pattern dominated by like-charge attraction and…
Liquid-liquid phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) is a major undergirding factor in the regulated formation of membraneless organelles in the cell. The phase behavior of an IDP is sensitive to its amino acid…
The ion-activated patchy particle model is an important theoretical framework to investigate the phase behaviour of globular proteins in the presence of multivalent ions. In this work, we study and highlight the influence of patch…
Liquid-liquid phase separation of liquids exhibiting interconversion between alternative states has been proposed as an underlying mechanism for fluid polyamorphism, and may be of relevance to protein function and intracellular…
We propose a framework to study the spatio-temporal evolution of liquid-liquid phase separation of weak polyelectrolytes in ionic solutions. Unlike strong polyelectrolytes, which carry a fixed charge, the charge state of weak…
Phase separation and transitions among different molecular states are ubiquitous in living cells. Such transitions can be governed by local equilibrium thermodynamics or by active processes controlled by biological fuel. It remains largely…
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.…
The phase behavior is investigated for systems composed of a large number of macromolecular components N, with N greater or equal to 2. Liquid-liquid phase separation is modelled using a virial expansion up to the second order of the…
Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) are typically low in nonpolar/hydrophobic but relatively high in polar, charged, and aromatic amino acid compositions. Some IDPs undergo liquid-liquid phase separation in the aqueous milieu of the…
We deduce the mixing-demixing phase diagram for binary liquid mixtures in an electric field for various electrode geometries and arbitrary constitutive relation for the dielectric constant. By focusing on the behavior of the liquid-liquid…