Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34600899›Full record

ArticleBiophysical journal2021

Controlling composition of coexisting phases via molecular transitions.

Giacomo Bartolucci, Omar Adame-Arana, Xueping Zhao, Christoph A Weber

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Biophysical journal, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Chemically active wetting.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Biophysics of biomolecular condensates.Biophysical journal · 2023
    Article
  6. Local thermodynamics govern formation and dissolution ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Giacomo BartolucciMax Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany; Center for Systems Biology Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Omar Adame-AranaDepartment of Chemical and Biological Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Xueping ZhaoMax Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany; Center for Systems Biology Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Christoph A WeberMax Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany; Center for Systems Biology Dresden, Dresden, Germany. Electronic address: weber@pks.mpg.de.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Phase separation and transitions among different molecular states are ubiquitous in living cells. Such transitions can be governed by local equilibrium thermodynamics or by active processes controlled by biological fuel. It remains largely unexplored how the behavior of phase-separating systems with molecular transitions differs between thermodynamic equilibrium and cases in which the detailed balance of the molecular transition rates is broken because of the presence of fuel. Here, we present a model of a phase-separating ternary mixture in which two components can convert into each other. At thermodynamic equilibrium, we find that molecular transitions can give rise to a lower dissolution temperature and thus reentrant phase behavior. Moreover, we find a discontinuous thermodynamic phase transition in the composition of the droplet phase if both converting molecules attract themselves with similar interaction strength. Breaking the detailed balance of the molecular transition leads to quasi-discontinuous changes in droplet composition by varying the fuel amount for a larger range of intermolecular interactions. Our findings showcase that phase separation with molecular transitions provides a versatile mechanism to control properties of intracellular and synthetic condensates via discontinuous switches in droplet composition.

Indexed as

ThermodynamicsPhase TransitionTemperature

Identifiers

PMID34600899
PMCPMC8595902

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.