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Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation

Biomolecular condensation and phase separation are increasingly understood to play crucial roles in cellular compartmentalization and spatiotemporal regulation of cell machinery implicated in function and pathology. A key aspect of current research is to gain insight into the underlying physical mec...

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Autores principales: Das, Debapriya, Deniz, Ashok A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9855981/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36671536
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biom13010151
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author Das, Debapriya
Deniz, Ashok A.
author_facet Das, Debapriya
Deniz, Ashok A.
author_sort Das, Debapriya
collection PubMed
description Biomolecular condensation and phase separation are increasingly understood to play crucial roles in cellular compartmentalization and spatiotemporal regulation of cell machinery implicated in function and pathology. A key aspect of current research is to gain insight into the underlying physical mechanisms of these processes. Accordingly, concepts of soft matter and polymer physics, the thermodynamics of mixing, and material science have been utilized for understanding condensation mechanisms of multivalent macromolecules resulting in viscoelastic mesoscopic supramolecular assemblies. Here, we focus on two topological concepts that have recently been providing key mechanistic understanding in the field. First, we will discuss how percolation provides a network-topology-related framework that offers an interesting paradigm to understand the complex networking of dense ‘connected’ condensate structures and, therefore, their phase behavior. Second, we will discuss the idea of entanglement as another topological concept that has deep roots in polymer physics and important implications for biomolecular condensates. We will first review some historical developments and fundamentals of these concepts, then we will discuss current advancements and recent examples. Our discussion ends with a few open questions and the challenges to address them, hinting at unveiling fresh possibilities for the modification of existing knowledge as well as the development of new concepts relevant to condensate science.
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spelling pubmed-98559812023-01-21 Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation Das, Debapriya Deniz, Ashok A. Biomolecules Review Biomolecular condensation and phase separation are increasingly understood to play crucial roles in cellular compartmentalization and spatiotemporal regulation of cell machinery implicated in function and pathology. A key aspect of current research is to gain insight into the underlying physical mechanisms of these processes. Accordingly, concepts of soft matter and polymer physics, the thermodynamics of mixing, and material science have been utilized for understanding condensation mechanisms of multivalent macromolecules resulting in viscoelastic mesoscopic supramolecular assemblies. Here, we focus on two topological concepts that have recently been providing key mechanistic understanding in the field. First, we will discuss how percolation provides a network-topology-related framework that offers an interesting paradigm to understand the complex networking of dense ‘connected’ condensate structures and, therefore, their phase behavior. Second, we will discuss the idea of entanglement as another topological concept that has deep roots in polymer physics and important implications for biomolecular condensates. We will first review some historical developments and fundamentals of these concepts, then we will discuss current advancements and recent examples. Our discussion ends with a few open questions and the challenges to address them, hinting at unveiling fresh possibilities for the modification of existing knowledge as well as the development of new concepts relevant to condensate science. MDPI 2023-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9855981/ /pubmed/36671536 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biom13010151 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Das, Debapriya
Deniz, Ashok A.
Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation
title Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation
title_full Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation
title_fullStr Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation
title_full_unstemmed Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation
title_short Topological Considerations in Biomolecular Condensation
title_sort topological considerations in biomolecular condensation
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9855981/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36671536
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biom13010151
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