Related papers: Phase boundaries promote chemical reactions throug…
Phase-separated liquid condensates can spatially organize and thereby regulate chemical processes. However, the physicochemical mechanisms underlying such regulation remain elusive as the intramolecular interactions responsible for phase…
Biomolecular condensates play a crucial role in the spatial organization of living matter. These membrane-less organelles, resulting from liquid-liquid phase separation, operate far from thermodynamic equilibrium, with their size and…
Biomolecular condensates are small droplets forming spontaneously in biological cells via phase separation. They play a role in many cellular processes, but it is unclear how cells control them. Cellular regulation often relies on…
Phase separation drives the formation of biomolecular condensates in cells, which comprise many components and sometimes possess multiple phases. The equilibrium physics of phase separation is well understood, but many components in…
Coupling between chemical fuel consumption and phase separation can lead to condensation at a nonequilibrium steady state, resulting in phase behaviors that are not described by equilibrium thermodynamics. Theoretical models of such…
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…
The interaction of phase-separating systems with chemical reactions is of great interest in various contexts, from biology to material science. In biology, phase separation is thought to be the driving force behind the formation of…
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…
Biomolecules composed of a limited set of chemical building blocks can co-localize into distinct, spatially segregated compartments known as biomolecular condensates. While many condensates are known to form spontaneously via phase…
We study phase-separating fluid mixtures as they demix in the presence of chemical reactions that maintain them away from thermodynamic equilibrium. We show that in such chemically active emulsions the interplay of chemical reactions, phase…
Biomembranes wrapping cells and organelles are not only the partitions that separate the insides but also dynamic fields for biological functions accompanied by membrane shape changes. In this review, we discuss the spatiotemporal patterns…
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…
Droplets are essential for spatially controlling biomolecules in cells. To work properly, cells need to control the emergence and morphology of droplets. On the one hand, driven chemical reactions can affect droplets profoundly. For…
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 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.…
Chemical activity is known to affect phase coexistence and coarsening in liquid mixtures, most commonly through reaction-induced changes of intermolecular interactions. Here, we analyze a scenario in which chemical reactions regulate…
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…
Chemically driven fluids can demix to form condensed droplets that exhibit phase behaviors not observed at equilibrium. In particular, nonequilibrium interfacial properties can emerge when the chemical reactions are driven differentially…
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 help organize the cell cytoplasm and nucleoplasm into spatial compartments with different chemical compositions. A key feature of such compositional patterning is the local enrichment of enzymatically active…