Related papers: Mesoscale phase separation of chromatin in the nuc…
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 mechanism responsible for the compaction of the genomic DNA of bacteria inside a structure called the nucleoid is a longstanding but still lively debated question. Most puzzling is the fact that the nucleoid occupies only a small…
Chromosomal crossovers play a crucial role in meiotic cell division, as they ensure proper chromosome segregation and increase genetic variability. Experiments have consistently revealed two key observations across species: (i) the number…
The fractal globule state is a popular model for describing chromatin packing in eukaryotic nuclei. Here we provide a scaling theory and dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) computer simulation for the thermal motion of monomers in the…
Lyotropic liquid crystals can display rich phase behaviour and self-organisation, yet the physical principles underlying their self-assembly into large scale patterns remains understudied. Here, we combine theory, simulations and…
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,…
The features of the emissions of light particles ($LP$), charged particles ($CP$), intermediate mass fragments ($IMF$) and the largest fragment ($MAX$) are investigated for $^{129}Xe$ as functions of temperature and "freeze-out" density in…
We formulate the configurational partition function for dendrimers, taking explicit account of their conformations and segmental interactions. Two approximate schemes are presented, one based on the effective dendrimer-dendrimer…
The architecture of the eukaryotic genome is characterized by a high degree of spatial organization. Chromosomes occupy preferred territories correlated to their state of activity and, yet, displace their genes to interact with remote sites…
Self-organization of charged particles on a 2D lattice, subject to an anisotropic Jahn-Teller-type interaction and 3D Coulomb repulsion is investigated. In the mean-field approximation without Coulomb interaction, the system displays a…
We propose a unified mechanism that reproduces the sequence of dynamical transitions observed during somitogenesis, the process of body segmentation during embryonic development, that is invariant across all vertebrate species. This is…
We theoretically study mixtures of chemically-interacting particles, which produce or consume a chemical to which they are attracted or repelled, in the most general case of many coexisting species. We find a new class of active phase…
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,…
The phase separation mechanism of a binary liquid mixture off-critically quenched in its miscibility gap is nucleation and growth, its homogeneous phase reaching a metastable equilibrium state. The successive stages of growth of the…
The development of multicellular organisms relies on the precise coordination of molecular events across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Understanding how information flows from molecular interactions to cellular processes and tissue…
Fragment average isospin distributions are investigated within a microcanonical multifragmentation model in different regions of the phase diagram. The results indicate that in the liquid phase $<N/Z>$ versus $Z$ is monotonically…
Biomolecular condensates are essential for cellular organization and result from phase separation in systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Among various models, chemically active droplets play a significant role, consisting of…
The nucleation of a lamellar phase from a supercooled homogeneous phase in a fluctuation driven first-order transition is studied, based on a phenomenological free energy due to Brazovskii. The absence of phase coexistence in the…
The thermal and phase properties of a multifragmentation model which uses clusters as degrees of freedom, are explored as a function of isospin. A good qualitative agreement is found with the phase diagram of asymmetric nuclear matter as…
Recent experiments have shown how nematically-ordered tactoid shaped actin droplets can be reorganized and divided by the action of myosin molecular motors. In this paper, we consider how similar morphological changes can potentially be…