Related papers: Mesoscale phase separation of chromatin in the nuc…
RNA molecules in living cells form what look like liquid droplets formed by liquid/liquid phase separation. But unlike the molecules in conventional phase separating mixtures, RNA molecules are transported by molecular motors that consume…
We develop a model in the framework of nuclear fragmentation at thermodynamic equilibrium which can be mapped onto an Ising model with constant magnetization. We work out the thermodynamic properties of the model as well as the properties…
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…
Live-cell imaging experiments have shown that the distal dynamics between enhancers and promoters are unexpectedly rapid and incompatible with standard polymer models. The discordance between the compact static chromatin organization and…
Increasing the number of particles in a system often leads to qualitative changes in its properties, such as breaking of symmetries and the appearance of phase transitions. This renders a macroscopic system fundamentally different from its…
The thermodynamic properties of nuclei are studied in a mean field model using a Skryme interaction. Properties of two component systems are investigated over the complete range of proton fraction from a system of pure neutrons to a system…
There are many experimental data indicating the correlations of the changes in high level of organization of chromatin in human cells and changes in the state of the whole organism related to disease, state of tiredness or aging. In our…
Characterizing the link between small-scale chromatin structure and large-scale chromosome folding during interphase is a prerequisite for understanding transcription. Yet, this link remains poorly investigated. Here, we introduce a simple…
Cell plasma membranes display a dramatically rich structural complexity characterized by functional sub-wavelength domains with specific lipid and protein composition. Under favorable experimental conditions, patterned morphologies can also…
We investigate properties of the symmetry term in the equation-of-state (EOS) of nuclear matter (NM) from the analysis of simulations of fragmentation events in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions. For charge asymmetric systems a…
Nucleosynthesis in the oceans of accreting neutron stars can produce novel mixtures of nuclides, whose composition is dependent on the exact astrophysical conditions. Many simulations have now been done to determine the nucleosynthesis…
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…
Fluorescence microscopy reveals that the contents of many (membrane-free) nuclear "bodies" exchange rapidly with the soluble pool whilst the underlying structure persists; such observations await a satisfactory biophysical explanation. To…
We propose that the degree of sweeling of the 30nm chromatin fiber (a "measure" of its transcriptional activity) is mainly determined by the short-ranged electrostatical interaction between different sections of the "folded" DNA chain.…
We present a theoretical model of facilitated diffusion of proteins in the cell nucleus. This model, which takes into account the successive binding/unbinding events of proteins to DNA, relies on a fractal description of the chromatin which…
Protein-mediated interactions are ubiquitous in the cellular environment, and particularly in the nucleus, where they are responsible for the structuring of chromatin. We show through molecular--dynamics simulations of a polymer surrounded…
Differences in activities in colloidal particles are sufficient to drive phase separation between active and passive (or less active) particles, even if they have only excluded volume interactions. In this paper, we study the phase…
The cell nucleus is increasingly recognized as a mechanosensitive organelle whose mesoscale mechanical heterogeneity (100 nm 10 um) is inseparable from genome regulation yet remains weakly integrated into systems biology and omics…
We study the kinetics of the first order phase separation transition in boson-fermion cold-atom mixtures. At sufficiently low temperatures such a transition is driven by quantum fluctuations responsible for the formation of critical nuclei…
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…