ArticleCell2018
mTORC1 Controls Phase Separation and the Biophysical Properties of the Cytoplasm by Tuning Crowding.
Article in Cell, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 288 papers.
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
288 citing papers in PubMed, 553 citations in OpenAlex.
- Nuclear mechanobiology rules immune cells' functions: from differentiation to cell trafficking and pathogen killing.Nucleus (Austin, Tex.) · 2026Review
- Quantitative Analysis of Cytoplasmic Viscosity in Colorectal Cancer Cells by Differential Dynamic Microscopy of Genetically Encoded Nanoparticles.Chemical & biomedical imaging · 2026Article
- Noncoding RNA encoded peptides in tumors from discovery to mechanism and clinical translation.iScience · 2026Review
- Condensates and cell states: A new paradigm for understanding tumor biology.Biophysical journal · 2026Review
- High-throughput identification of endogenous biomolecular condensates and phase-separating proteins.Nature protocols · 2026Review
- Bacterial growth under confinement requires transcriptional adaptation to resist turgor pressure build-up.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Glycogen-dependent demixing of frog egg cytoplasm at increased crowding.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- Muscular dystrophy-associated lamin variants disrupt cellular organization through a nucleolar-ribosomal axis.Science advances · 2026Article
- Chromatin decompaction within the nucleus increases plasma membrane tension promoting NETosis execution, independently of transcription.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Cytoplasmic fluidity couples nutrient availability and enterocyte fate in vivo.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Mapping Protein Diffusion from the Plasma Membrane to the Nucleus: Insights from Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Spatial biology of crowded tumor cells: A new map for designing drug combinations.Current opinion in structural biology · 2026Review
- Contrasting effects of different molecular crowding environments on base-pair opening/closing dynamics of DNA triplex structures.The FEBS journal · 2026Article
- Carrier-Free Nanoassembly Suppresses Phase Separation via Ribosome-Inspired Crowding Control for Enhanced Chemo-Immunotherapy.ACS nano · 2026Article
- Nuclear size and physical properties of the nucleoplasm are determined by colloid osmotic pressure at the nuclear envelope.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Wall teichoic acids regulate peptidoglycan synthesis to maintain rod shape in Bacillus subtilis.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Mechanosensing at the endoplasmic reticulum by IRE1.Research square · 2026Article
- Article
- Crowding-induced collapse and adsorption of polymers with nonuniform bending stiffness.Soft matter · 2026Article
- Getting nuclear size just right - emerging mechanisms regulating nuclear scaling and morphology.Journal of cell science · 2026Review
228 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Commented on byCrowd control.2018
Authors and funding
16 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Macromolecular crowding has a profound impact on reaction rates and the physical properties of the cell interior, but the mechanisms that regulate crowding are poorly understood. We developed genetically encoded multimeric nanoparticles (GEMs) to dissect these mechanisms. GEMs are homomultimeric scaffolds fused to a fluorescent protein that self-assemble into bright, stable particles of defined size and shape. By combining tracking of GEMs with genetic and pharmacological approaches, we discovered that the mTORC1 pathway can modulate the effective diffusion coefficient of particles ≥20 nm in diameter more than 2-fold by tuning ribosome concentration, without any discernable effect on the motion of molecules ≤5 nm. This change in ribosome concentration affected phase separation both in vitro and in vivo. Together, these results establish a role for mTORC1 in controlling both the mesoscale biophysical properties of the cytoplasm and biomolecular condensation.
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.