Related papers: How do intrinsically disordered protein regions en…
Biomolecular condensates constitute a newly recognized form of spatial organization in living cells. Although many condensates are believed to form as a result of phase separation, the physicochemical properties that determine the phase…
The cellular environment, characterized by its intricate composition and spatial organization, hosts a variety of organelles, ranging from membrane-bound ones to membraneless structures that are formed through liquid-liquid phase…
Phase separation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatial organization inside biological cells. However, despite the clear relevance to virtually all physiological functions, we understand surprisingly little about what phases…
Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) involving intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDRs) is a major physical mechanism for biological membraneless compartmentalization. The multifaceted electrostatic effects in these biomolecular…
Phase separation is as familiar as watching vinegar separating from oil in vinegrette. The observation that phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids is widespread in living cells has opened an entire field of research into the…
Liquid cellular compartments spatially segregate from the cytoplasm and can regulate aberrant protein aggregation, a process linked to several medical conditions, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Yet the mechanisms by which…
The paradigm that the primary amino acid sequence prescribes structure and thus function has for a long time been central to the understanding of protein science. Though the theory is supported by the behaviour of most structured proteins,…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is emerging as a crucial phenomenon in several fundamental cell processes. A range of eukaryotic systems exhibit liquid condensates. However, their function in bacteria, which in general lack membrane-bound…
Proliferation and motility are ubiquitous drivers of activity in biological systems. Here, we study a dense binary mixture of motile and proliferating particles with exclusively repulsive interactions, where homeostasis in the proliferating…
Liquid liquid phase separation (LLPS) mediated by pi-cation bonds between tyrosine and arginine residues are of biological importance. To understand the interactions between proteins in the condensed phase in close analogy to complex…
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…
We perform simulations of a system containing simple model proteins and a polymer representing chromatin. We study the interplay between protein-protein and protein-chromatin interactions, and the resulting condensates which arise due to…
The interplay between phase separation and wetting of multicomponent mixtures is ubiquitous in nature and technology and recently gained significant attention across scientific disciplines, due to the discovery of biomolecular condensates.…
Phase separation, crucial for spatially segregating biomolecules in cells, is well-understood in the simple case of a few components with pairwise interactions. Yet, biological cells challenge the simple picture in at least two ways: First,…
Phase separation in a low-density gas-like phase and a high-density liquid-like one is a common trait of biological and synthetic self-propelling particles' systems. The competition between motility and stochastic forces is assumed to fix…
The formation of polarized signaling domains on cell membranes is a fundamental example of biological pattern formation. While such patterns resemble structures from equilibrium phase separation, they are intrinsically non-equilibrium,…
We present a minimal model to study liquid phase separation in a fixed pH ensemble. The model describes a mixture composed of macromolecules that exist in three different charge states and have a tendency to phase separate. We introduce the…
In living cells, proteins involved in specialized biochemical functions are often spatially organized within biomolecular condensates. Increasing evidence suggests that some of these condensates, including DNA repair condensates, emerge…
Demixing of binary liquids is a ubiquitous transition, which is explained using a well-established thermodynamic formalism that requires equality of intensive thermodynamics parameters across the phase boundaries. Demixing transitions also…
Biological cells exhibit a hierarchical spatial organization, where various compartments harbor condensates that form by phase separation. Cells can control the emergence of these condensates by affecting compartment size, the amount of the…