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Liquid phase condensation in cell physiology and disease
TLDR
The findings together suggest that several membrane-less organelles have been shown to exhibit a concentration threshold for assembly, a hallmark of phase separation, and represent liquid-phase condensates, which form via a biologically regulated (liquid-liquid) phase separation process.
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Germline P Granules Are Liquid Droplets That Localize by Controlled Dissolution/Condensation
TLDR
It is shown that P granules exhibit liquid-like behaviors, including fusion, dripping, and wetting, which is used to estimate their viscosity and surface tension, and reflects a classic phase transition, in which polarity proteins vary the condensation point across the cell.
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The disordered P granule protein LAF-1 drives phase separation into droplets with tunable viscosity and dynamics
TLDR
It is demonstrated that an N-terminal, arginine/glycine rich, intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) domain of LAF-1 is necessary and sufficient for both phase separation and RNA–protein interactions, and insight is provided into the mechanism by which IDP-driven molecular interactions give rise to liquid phase organelles with tunable properties.
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Active liquid-like behavior of nucleoli determines their size and shape in Xenopus laevis oocytes
TLDR
It is shown that both the size and shape of the amphibian oocyte nucleolus ultimately arise because nucleoli behave as liquid-like droplets of RNA and protein, exhibiting characteristic viscous fluid dynamics even on timescales of < 1 min.
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Coexisting Liquid Phases Underlie Nucleolar Subcompartments
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Polymer physics of intracellular phase transitions
TLDR
These findings highlight the relevance of classical concepts from the physics of polymeric phase transitions for understanding the assembly of intracellular membrane-less compartments, and challenge the challenge of applying these concepts given the heteropolymeric nature of protein sequences, the complex intrACEllular environment, and non-equilibrium features intrinsic to cells.
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RNA Controls PolyQ Protein Phase Transitions.
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Microtubules can bear enhanced compressive loads in living cells because of lateral reinforcement
TLDR
It is shown that intracellular microtubules do bear large-scale compressive loads from a variety of physiological forces, but their buckling wavelength is reduced significantly because of mechanical coupling to the surrounding elastic cytoskeleton, suggesting they can make a more significant structural contribution to the mechanical behavior of the cell than previously thought possible.
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Phase transitions and size scaling of membrane-less organelles
TLDR
The phase transitions that appear to govern the assembly of membrane-less cytoplasmic and nucleoplasmic structures exhibit an intrinsic dependence on cell size, and may explain the size scaling reported for a number of structures.
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Competing Protein-RNA Interaction Networks Control Multiphase Intracellular Organization
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