ReviewMolecular biology of the cell2019
Colloid osmotic parameterization and measurement of subcellular crowding.
Review in Molecular biology of the cell, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed.
- Entropy-Driven Initiation and Cytoskeletal Viscoelasticity in Endocytosis: An Onsager Variational Framework.Membranes · 2026Article
- Glycogen-dependent demixing of frog egg cytoplasm at increased crowding.Biophysical journal · 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
- Mechanoresponsive modulation of nuclear pore complex structure and function bybioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Getting nuclear size just right - emerging mechanisms regulating nuclear scaling and morphology.Journal of cell science · 2026Review
- How does cytoplasmic crowding affect reaction rates?Molecular cell · 2026Review
- Endoplasmic reticulum disruption stimulates nuclear membrane mechanotransduction.Nature cell biology · 2026Article
- Conserved nucleocytoplasmic density homeostasis drives cellular organization across eukaryotes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Intracellular diffusion in the cytoplasm increases with cell size in fission yeast.Molecular biology of the cell · 2025Article
- Article
- Microtubule-associated protein MAP7 promotes tubulin posttranslational modifications and cargo transport to enable osmotic adaptation.Developmental cell · 2024Article
- SM protein Sly1 and a SNARE Habc domain promote membrane fusion through multiple mechanisms.The Journal of cell biology · 2024Article
- Tau liquid-liquid phase separation: At the crossroads of tau physiology and tauopathy.Journal of cellular physiology · 2024Review
- N2FXm, a method for joint nuclear and cytoplasmic volume measurements, unravels the osmo-mechanical regulation of nuclear volume in mammalian cells.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Protein nanoparticles induce the activation of voltage-dependent non-selective ion channels to modulate biological osmotic pressure in cytotoxic cerebral edema.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- In situ quantification of osmotic pressure within living embryonic tissues.Nature communications · 2023Article
- A conserved pressure-driven mechanism for regulating cytosolic osmolarity.Current biology : CB · 2023Article
- The nuclear transport factor CSE1 drives macronuclear volume increase and macronuclear node coalescence iniScience · 2023Article
- Phase Transitions of Associative Biomacromolecules.Chemical reviews · 2023Review
- Centripetal nuclear shape fluctuations associate with chromatin condensation in early prophase.Communications biology · 2023Article
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1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Crowding of the subcellular environment by macromolecules is thought to promote protein aggregation and phase separation. A challenge is how to parameterize the degree of crowding of the cell interior or artificial solutions that is relevant to these reactions. Here I review colloid osmotic pressure as a crowding metric. This pressure is generated by solutions of macromolecules in contact with pores that are permeable to water and ions but not macromolecules. It generates depletion forces that push macromolecules together in crowded solutions and thus promotes aggregation and phase separation. I discuss measurements of colloid osmotic pressure inside cells using the nucleus, the cytoplasmic gel, and fluorescence resonant energy transfer (FRET) biosensors as osmometers, which return a range of values from 1 to 20 kPa. I argue for a low value, 1-2 kPa, in frog eggs and perhaps more generally. This value is close to the linear range on concentration-pressure curves and is thus not crowded from an osmotic perspective. I discuss the implications of a low crowding pressure inside cells for phase separation biology, buffer design, and proteome evolution. I also discuss a pressure-tension model for nuclear shape, where colloid osmotic pressure generated by nuclear protein import inflates the nucleus.
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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.