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Formation of liquid-like cellular organelles depends on their composition

Liquid-like organelles in cells form when key constituents reach a certain concentration and then condense. Evidence now indicates that the concentration at which condensation occurs can vary, contrary to previous assumptions.
  1. Chiu Fan Lee

    1. Chiu Fan Lee is in the Department of Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.

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Water transitions from a liquid to a gas phase as it reaches its boiling point. Similarly, proteins in cells can transition from freely mixing in the cytoplasm or its nuclear equivalent, the nucleoplasm, to condensing into a concentrated liquid-drop phase once they reach a threshold concentration1. This saturation concentration has been assumed to be an invariant quantity, but, writing in Nature, Riback et al.2 demonstrate that this assumption is invalid. Much as the boiling point of water varies depending on pressure, the saturation concentration depends on the concentrations of the proteins involved.

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Nature 581, 144-145 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01280-1

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