ArticleBiophysical journal2023
Crowding-induced phase separation and gelling by co-condensation of PEG in NPM1-rRNA condensates.
Article in Biophysical journal, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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41 citing papers in PubMed, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Mechanistic Insights into the Formation of Complex Coacervates in Crowded Environments.Biomacromolecules · 2026Article
- Molecular Crowding Stabilizes DNA Coacervate Droplets and Generates Self-Organized Characteristic Patterns.JACS Au · 2026Article
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- Acetic acid induces proteasome storage granule formation and inhibits proteasomal proteolysis: Comparison with other induction conditions.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2026Article
- Residue-level mapping of crowding effects on protein phase separation.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Article
- Allosteric drugs in biomolecular condensates: ways forward.Drug discovery today · 2026Review
- Chemical interactions in polyethylene glycol-induced condensates lead to an anomalous FRET response from a flexible linker-fluorescent protein crowding sensor.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The cyanobacterial ESCRT-III protein IM30 forms biomolecular condensates at physiologically relevant conditions.Biophysical journal · 2026Article
- A high-throughput, flow cytometry approach to measure phase behavior and exchange in biomolecular condensates.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Water Under Molecular Crowding: From Femtosecond H-Bond Networks Dynamics to Biological Function.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2026Review
- Polo-Like Kinase 1 Phosphorylation Tunes the Functional Viscoelastic Properties of the Centrosome Scaffold.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- PHASE SEPARATION TUNES THE STABILITY AND DYNAMICS OF G-QUADRUPLEX AND I-MOTIF DNA IN THE NUCLEI OF LIVING CELLS.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Repulsive vs Attractive Crowding Distinctly Regulate TDP-43 Condensates through Region-specific Structural Dynamics.JACS Au · 2025Article
- Amino acids bind to phase-separating proteins and modulate biomolecular condensate stability and dynamics.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Quantifying collective interactions in biomolecular phase separation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A coarse-grained model for disordered proteins under crowded conditions.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025Article
- Altering the biophysical properties of ERC1/ELKS-driven condensates interferes with cell motility.Communications biology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The crowdedness of the cell calls for adequate intracellular organization. Biomolecular condensates, formed by liquid-liquid phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins and nucleic acids, are important organizers of cellular fluids. To underpin the molecular mechanisms of protein condensation, cell-free studies are often used where the role of crowding is not investigated in detail. Here, we investigate the effects of macromolecular crowding on the formation and material properties of a model heterotypic biomolecular condensate, consisting of nucleophosmin (NPM1) and ribosomal RNA (rRNA). We studied the effect of the macromolecular crowding agent poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), which is often considered an inert crowding agent. We observed that PEG could induce both homotypic and heterotypic phase separation of NPM1 and NPM1-rRNA, respectively. Crowding increases the condensed concentration of NPM1 and decreases its equilibrium dilute phase concentration, although no significant change in the concentration of rRNA in the dilute phase was observed. Interestingly, the crowder itself is concentrated in the condensates, suggesting that co-condensation rather than excluded volume interactions underlie the enhanced phase separation by PEG. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching measurements indicated that both NPM1 and rRNA become immobile at high PEG concentrations, indicative of a liquid-to-gel transition. Together, these results provide more insight into the role of synthetic crowding agents in phase separation and demonstrate that condensate properties determined in vitro depend strongly on the addition of crowding agents.
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