作者
Basilio Cieza Huaman
发表日期
2022/7/13
机构
Johns Hopkins University
简介
Cells regulate when and where molecular reactions occur; to do this, cells limit the interaction of their molecules through different strategies. For example, cells use space to limit chemical reactions by localization of molecules in different spaces called compartments. Cellular compartments are also called organelles. There are two types of organelles, membrane-bounded organelles and membraneless organelles. Many studies suggest that membraneless organelles are biomolecular condensates formed through Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation (LLPS). However, other molecular condensates such as transcription, translation, and signaling assemblies are still highly condensed but not necessarily formed through LLPS. The physical principles governing LLPS have been well studied, and many models can be found. However, a general model explaining the principles governing molecular condensation in general, i.e., clustering, molecular sink, droplets, and so on, in biological systems and how cells regulate it is still missing. Here we introduce the ‘swarm model’, a simple reaction-diffusion model, composed of two main reactions: The first reaction promotes the nucleation events, while the second introduces the cooperativity term which promote the recruitment of particles. Here, species can switch from a diffuse state to a condensed state. Our model recapitulates many properties observed in various molecular condensates (MC) in biological systems, i.e., clustering of molecules, nucleation events promoting clustering, transition above a critical concentration, cluster diffusion, and particle exchange between condensates. Furthermore, a detailed …