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PROTEIN SELF-ASSEMBLY

Living cells as test tubes

Nature Chemical Biology volume 16, pages 934–935 (2020)Cite this article

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Thermodynamic principles are used to map the phase behavior of a tunable protein-binding system under crowded cellular conditions. This study marks a substantial step forward in relating molecular interactions to material properties and cellular processes involving protein self-assembly.

Cells frequently gain spatiotemporal control over biochemical processes necessary for proper functioning of the cell by the formation of membraneless compartments or organelles (MLOs) that are composed of proteins and nucleic acids1. The formation of MLOs inside cells can be described as a demixing process in which the enthalpic interactions between components overcome the entropic loss to favor the existence between a dense and a dilute phase2. Therefore, a detailed study of these interactions is necessary, though this is still an arduous task as biomolecules involved in phase separation have several different interaction modes, which often act in tandem to provide driving forces for phase separation3,4. How these molecular interactions relate to the observed phase behavior under cellular conditions is an open question of considerable interest. Heidenreich et al.5 devise a creative strategy guided by the rules of thermodynamics to provide a way to monitor phase diagrams in vivo for a synthetic two-protein system with specific interactions between the two proteins that are known and tunable.

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Fig. 1: Studying self-assembly of well-defined protein binding systems using a unified toolset.

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  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    Roshan Mammen Regy & Jeetain Mittal

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  1. Roshan Mammen Regy
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  2. Jeetain Mittal
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Correspondence to Jeetain Mittal.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Mammen Regy, R., Mittal, J. Living cells as test tubes. Nat Chem Biol 16, 934–935 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-020-0615-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-020-0615-9

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