ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Analysis of the size dependence of macromolecular crowding shows that smaller is better.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers.
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Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 175 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stress-induced remodeling of yeast amino acid pools occurs within conserved physicochemical constraints.Folia microbiologica · 2026Article
- Mimetics of in-cell and subcellular crowding and solvation for protein folding.Biochemical Society transactions · 2026Review
- Glycogen phase-separation drives macromolecular rearrangement and asymmetric division in E. coli.The EMBO journal · 2025Article
- Glycogen phase separation drives macromolecular rearrangement and asymmetric division inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Effects of Molecular Crowding on the Structure, Folding, Stability, and Catalysis of RNA.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2025Review
- Modeling Facilitated Diffusion of Proteins in Crowded Environment.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2025Review
- Simulating Crowding In Vitro: Not an Elusive Goal Any Longer.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2025Review
- Role of Aqueous Media in Macromolecular Crowding.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2025Review
- Crowder titrations enable the quantification of driving forces for macromolecular phase separation.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
- Intracellular Macromolecular Crowding within Individual Stress Fibers Analyzed by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy.Cellular and molecular bioengineering · 2024Article
- Protecting Proteins from Desiccation Stress Using Molecular Glasses and Gels.Chemical reviews · 2024Review
- Computational Approaches to Predict Protein-Protein Interactions in Crowded Cellular Environments.Chemical reviews · 2024Review
- Gums as Macromolecular Crowding Agents in Human Skin Fibroblast Cultures.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Not Always Sticky: Specificity of Protein Stabilization by Sugars Is Conferred by Protein-Water Hydrogen Bonds.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
- Effects of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Crowding on Translational Diffusion of Rigid Bovine Serum Albumin and Disordered Alfa-Casein.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Chemical interactions modulate λProtein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2023Article
- Matrix-Landing Mass Spectrometry for Electron Microscopy Imaging of Native Protein Complexes.Analytical chemistry · 2022Article
- Effects of Molecular Crowding and Betaine on HSPB5 Interactions, with Target Proteins Differing in the Quaternary Structure and Aggregation Mechanism.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Positive Cooperativity Induced by Interstrand Interactions in Silver(I) Complexes with α,α'-Diimine Ligands.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2022Article
- Molecular Characterization of a DNA Polymerase fromInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The aqueous milieu inside cells contains as much as 30-40% dissolved protein and RNA by volume. This large concentration of macromolecules is expected to cause significant deviations from solution ideality. In vivo biochemical reaction rates and equilibria might differ significantly from those measured in the majority of in vitro experiments that are performed at much lower macromolecule concentrations. Consequently crowding, a nonspecific phenomenon believed to arise from the large excluded volume of these macromolecules, has been studied extensively by experimental and theoretical methods. However, the relevant theory has not been applied consistently. When the steric effects of macromolecular crowders and small molecules like water and ions are treated on an equal footing, the effect of the macromolecules is opposite to that commonly believed. Large molecules are less effective at crowding than water and ions. There is also a surprisingly weak dependence on crowder size. Molecules of medium size, ∼5 Å radius, have the same effect as much larger macromolecules like proteins and RNA. These results require a reassessment of observed high-concentration effects and of strategies to mimic in vivo conditions with in vitro experiments.
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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.