ReviewAnnual review of biophysics2008
Macromolecular crowding and confinement: biochemical, biophysical, and potential physiological consequences.
Review in Annual review of biophysics, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 794 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
794 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 2,135 citations in OpenAlex.
- Macromolecular Crowding in Cytoplasm and Cellular Organelles.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2025Pooled it
- Crowder-specific modulation of hepatitis C virus NS3/4A protease activity and local structural dynamics.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Article
- Condensates and cell states: A new paradigm for understanding tumor biology.Biophysical journal · 2026Review
- Mechanistic Insights into the Formation of Complex Coacervates in Crowded Environments.Biomacromolecules · 2026Article
- Quantification of Phosphorylated Tau Protein in Alzheimer's Disease Patients' Fluids With Electrolyte-Gated Organic Transistor Biosensors.Advanced healthcare materials · 2026Article
- Quantitative recovery of methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) and PEGylated nanosystems from complex biological matrices.Nanoscale advances · 2026Article
- Contrasting effects of different molecular crowding environments on base-pair opening/closing dynamics of DNA triplex structures.The FEBS journal · 2026Article
- Spatial biology of crowded tumor cells: A new map for designing drug combinations.Current opinion in structural biology · 2026Review
- A co-overexpression strategy allows effective protein-protein binding affinities to be assessed as a function of concentration within live cells.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Protein crowders remodel RNA electrostatics, hydration, and dynamics: a challenge to steric crowding models.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Engineering a Biological Nanopore for Monitoring Protein Dynamics and Conformational Changes at the Single-Molecule Level.ACS nano · 2026Article
- A Versatile Multiplexed Immunofluorescence Strategy for Efficient, Host-Independent, and Scalable Spatial Protein Profiling.Small methods · 2026Article
- Crowding-induced collapse and adsorption of polymers with nonuniform bending stiffness.Soft matter · 2026Article
- DNA recognition, cleavage, and toxic metal ion interaction of an artificial zinc finger protein inside E. coli cells.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Article
- Modulation of Caffeine Permeation Kinetics in a Skin-PAMPA Model by Probiotic Lysates and Bile Acids.Pharmaceutics · 2026Article
- Aggregation of Phosphates Enhances Enzyme Activity in Aqueous Solution.Chemphyschem : a European journal of chemical physics and physical chemistry · 2026Article
- Mimetics of in-cell and subcellular crowding and solvation for protein folding.Biochemical Society transactions · 2026Review
- Transplantation of active mitochondria condensed in liquid-liquid phase-separated hydrogels ameliorates myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Engineering macromolecular crowding-driven amyloid-mineral hybrid scaffolds for enhanced bone regeneration.Bioactive materials · 2026Article
- Allosteric regulation of enzymatic catalysis by molecular crowding.Communications chemistry · 2026Article
734 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Expected and observed effects of volume exclusion on the free energy of rigid and flexible macromolecules in crowded and confined systems, and consequent effects of crowding and confinement on macromolecular reaction rates and equilibria are summarized. Findings from relevant theoretical/simulation and experimental literature published from 2004 onward are reviewed. Additional complexity arising from the heterogeneity of local environments in biological media, and the presence of nonspecific interactions between macromolecules over and above steric repulsion, are discussed. Theoretical and experimental approaches to the characterization of crowding- and confinement-induced effects in systems approaching the complexity of living organisms are suggested.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.