Related papers: Chemically active droplets in crowded environments
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 formation of (bio)molecular condensates via liquid-liquid phase separation in cells has received increasing attention, as these coacervates play important functional and regulatory roles within biological systems. However, the majority…
Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) abound in cellular regulation. Their interactions are often transitory and highly sensitive to salt concentration and posttranslational modifications. However, little is known about the effect of…
We study the role of active coupling on the transport properties of homogeneously charged macromolecules in an infinitely dilute solution. An enzyme becomes actively bound to a segment of the macromolecule, exerting an electrostatic force…
Droplet microfluidics, in which micro-droplets serve as individual reactors, has enabled a wide range of high-throughput biochemical processes. Unlike solid wells typically used in current biochemical assays, droplets are subject to…
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…
Typical bodily and environmental fluids encountered by biological swimmers consist of dissolved macromolecules such as proteins and polymers, often rendering them non Newtonian. To mimic such scenarios, we investigate the motion of swimming…
The structure and function of polymers in confined environments, e.g., biopolymers in the cytoplasm of a cell, are strongly affected by macromolecular crowding. To explore the influence of solvent quality on conformations of crowded…
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…
We introduce a model of chemically active particles of a multi-component fluid that can change their interactions with other particles depending on their state. Since such switching of interactions can only be maintained by the input of…
Droplets form a cornerstone of the spatiotemporal organization of biomolecules in cells. These droplets are controlled using physical processes like chemical reactions and imposed gradients, which are costly to simulate using traditional…
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.…
Active particles under soft confinement such as droplets or vesicles present intriguing phenomena, as collective motion emerges alongside the deformation of the environment. A model is employed to systematically investigate droplet…
Gradient-driven diffusion in crowded, multicomponent mixtures is a topic of high interest because of its role in biological processes such as transport in cell membranes. In partially phase-separated solutions, gradient-driven diffusion…
Chemically active colloids or enzymes cluster into dense droplets driven by their phoretic response to collectively generated chemical gradients. Employing Brownian dynamics simulation techniques, our study of the dynamics of such a…
Biomolecular condensates play essential roles in cellular processes, and recent efforts have focused on understanding their assembly and rational design principles. In this study, we have employed an explicit-solvent minimal statistical…
Diffusive transport of small molecules within the internal structures of biological and synthetic material systems is complex because the crowded environment presents chemical and physical barriers to mobility. We explored this mobility…
Macromolecules occupy between 34 and 44% of the cell cytoplasm, about half the maximum pack- ing density of spheres in three dimension. Yet, there is no clear understanding of what is special about this value. To address this fundamental…
A simple model of an active colloid consisting of dumbbell-shaped particles that cyclically change their length without propelling themselves is proposed and analyzed. At nanoscales, it represents an idealization for bacterial cytoplasm or…
We show that the force generated by active enzyme molecules are strong enough to influence the dynamics of their surroundings under artificial crowded environments. We measured the behavior of polymer microparticles in a…