Related papers: Robust microphase separation through chemical reac…
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…
Phase separation of a liquid mixture embedded within an elastic network is relevant to a wide range of natural and industrial systems, including biomolecular condensates interacting with the cytoskeleton, structural colouring in bird…
We study chemical oscillators in the presence of phase separation. By imposing timescale separation between slow reactions and fast diffusion, we define a dynamics at phase equilibrium for the relevant degrees of freedom. We demonstrate…
The self-organization of proteins into enriched compartments and the formation of complex patterns are crucial processes for life on the cellular level. Liquid-liquid phase separation is one mechanism for forming such enriched compartments.…
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…
Phase separation under non-equilibrium conditions is exploited by biological cells to organize their cytoplasm but remains poorly understood as a physical phenomenon. Here, we study a ternary fluid model in which phase-separating molecules…
This article focuses on phase and aggregation behavior for linear chains composed of blocks of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments. Phase and conformational transitions of patterned chains are relevant for understanding liquid-liquid…
Phase-separated biomolecular condensates containing proteins and RNAs can assemble into higher-order structures by forming thermodynamically stable interfaces between immiscible phases. Using a minimal model of a protein/RNA interaction…
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…
Living systems must maintain robust biochemical function despite fluctuations that span a wide range of timescales. Biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) have been shown to buffer concentration…
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…
Biomolecular condensates are liquid- or gel-like droplets of proteins and nucleic acids formed at least in part through liquid-liquid phase separation. Condensates enable diverse functions of cells and the pathogens that infect them,…
The thermodynamic and dynamical conditions necessary to observe indefinite growth in homogeneous open chemical reaction networks (CRNs) satisfying mass action kinetics were presented in Srinivas et al. (2023): Unimolecular CRNs can only…
Non-equilibrium selection pressures were proposed for the formation of oligonucleotides with rich functionalities encoded in their sequences, such as catalysis. Since phase separation was shown to direct various chemical processes, we ask…
Unlike fluids at thermal equilibrium, biomolecular mixtures in living systems can sustain nonequilibrium steady states, in which active processes modify the conformational states of the constituent molecules. Despite qualitative…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Chemical reaction networks (CRNs) are directed graphs with reactant or product complexes as vertices, and reactions as arcs. A CRN is weakly reversible if each of its connected components is strongly connected. Weakly reversible networks…
Biomolecular condensates are formed via liquid-liquid phase separation of proteins, often together with nucleic acids, typically driven by interactions between low-affinity binding sites. The computational study of such condensates that…
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…
Molecular computation based on chemical reaction networks (CRNs) has emerged as a promising paradigm for designing programmable biochemical systems. However, the implementation of complex computations still requires excessively large and…