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Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets

Liquid-liquid phase separation yields spherical droplets that eventually coarsen to one large, stable droplet governed by the principle of minimal free energy. In chemically fueled phase separation, the formation of phase-separating molecules is coupled to a fuel-driven, non-equilibrium reaction cyc...

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Autores principales: Bergmann, Alexander M., Bauermann, Jonathan, Bartolucci, Giacomo, Donau, Carsten, Stasi, Michele, Holtmannspötter, Anna-Lena, Jülicher, Frank, Weber, Christoph A., Boekhoven, Job
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10582082/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37848445
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42344-w
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author Bergmann, Alexander M.
Bauermann, Jonathan
Bartolucci, Giacomo
Donau, Carsten
Stasi, Michele
Holtmannspötter, Anna-Lena
Jülicher, Frank
Weber, Christoph A.
Boekhoven, Job
author_facet Bergmann, Alexander M.
Bauermann, Jonathan
Bartolucci, Giacomo
Donau, Carsten
Stasi, Michele
Holtmannspötter, Anna-Lena
Jülicher, Frank
Weber, Christoph A.
Boekhoven, Job
author_sort Bergmann, Alexander M.
collection PubMed
description Liquid-liquid phase separation yields spherical droplets that eventually coarsen to one large, stable droplet governed by the principle of minimal free energy. In chemically fueled phase separation, the formation of phase-separating molecules is coupled to a fuel-driven, non-equilibrium reaction cycle. It thus yields dissipative structures sustained by a continuous fuel conversion. Such dissipative structures are ubiquitous in biology but are poorly understood as they are governed by non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Here, we bridge the gap between passive, close-to-equilibrium, and active, dissipative structures with chemically fueled phase separation. We observe that spherical, active droplets can undergo a morphological transition into a liquid, spherical shell. We demonstrate that the mechanism is related to gradients of short-lived droplet material. We characterize how far out of equilibrium the spherical shell state is and the chemical power necessary to sustain it. Our work suggests alternative avenues for assembling complex stable morphologies, which might already be exploited to form membraneless organelles by cells.
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spelling pubmed-105820822023-10-19 Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets Bergmann, Alexander M. Bauermann, Jonathan Bartolucci, Giacomo Donau, Carsten Stasi, Michele Holtmannspötter, Anna-Lena Jülicher, Frank Weber, Christoph A. Boekhoven, Job Nat Commun Article Liquid-liquid phase separation yields spherical droplets that eventually coarsen to one large, stable droplet governed by the principle of minimal free energy. In chemically fueled phase separation, the formation of phase-separating molecules is coupled to a fuel-driven, non-equilibrium reaction cycle. It thus yields dissipative structures sustained by a continuous fuel conversion. Such dissipative structures are ubiquitous in biology but are poorly understood as they are governed by non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Here, we bridge the gap between passive, close-to-equilibrium, and active, dissipative structures with chemically fueled phase separation. We observe that spherical, active droplets can undergo a morphological transition into a liquid, spherical shell. We demonstrate that the mechanism is related to gradients of short-lived droplet material. We characterize how far out of equilibrium the spherical shell state is and the chemical power necessary to sustain it. Our work suggests alternative avenues for assembling complex stable morphologies, which might already be exploited to form membraneless organelles by cells. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC10582082/ /pubmed/37848445 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42344-w Text en © The Author(s) 2023, corrected publication 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Bergmann, Alexander M.
Bauermann, Jonathan
Bartolucci, Giacomo
Donau, Carsten
Stasi, Michele
Holtmannspötter, Anna-Lena
Jülicher, Frank
Weber, Christoph A.
Boekhoven, Job
Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
title Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
title_full Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
title_fullStr Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
title_full_unstemmed Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
title_short Liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
title_sort liquid spherical shells are a non-equilibrium steady state of active droplets
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10582082/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37848445
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42344-w
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