ArticleNature communications2024
Phase-separated droplets swim to their dissolution.
Article in Nature communications, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Impacting Fuelling Dynamics Towards Tunable Liquid Metal Machine.Exploration (Beijing, China) · 2026Article
- Active RNA synthesis patterns nuclear condensates.Cell systems · 2026Article
- Deuterated Water Accelerates Phase-Separated Droplet Formation and Enables Directional Motion.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- Article
- Expression of nano-engineered RNA organelles in bacteria.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Coacervate droplets as pH-regionalized protocells.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Biomolecular condensates sustain pH gradients at equilibrium through charge neutralization.Nature chemistry · 2026Article
- Surface-Tethering Enhances Precision in Measuring Diffusion Within 3D Protein Condensates.Journal of molecular biology · 2026Article
- Recent Advances in Reactive Microdroplets for Clean Water and Energy.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Review
- Interactions Between Active Matters and Endogenous Fields.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Review
- Collective behavior of "flexicles".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Polymeric and Polymer-Functionalized Drug Delivery Vectors: From Molecular Architecture and Elasticity to Cellular Uptake.Polymers · 2025Review
- Surface-Tethering Enhances Precision in Measuring Diffusion Within 3D Protein Condensates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The rheology and interfacial properties of biomolecular condensates.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- Converging frontiers in biomolecular condensate and synthetic cell research.npj biomedical innovations · 2025Review
- Metastable phase-separated droplet generation and long-time DNA enrichment by laser-induced Soret effect.Communications chemistry · 2025Article
- Molecular determinants of condensate composition.Molecular cell · 2025Review
- Proteasome condensates repeatedly "contact and release" at the nuclear periphery during dissolution.microPublication biology · 2025Article
- Nucleo-cytoplasmic environment modulates spatiotemporal p53 phase separation.Science advances · 2024Article
- Self-Organized Patterns in Non-Reciprocal Active Droplet Systems.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Biological macromolecules can condense into liquid domains. In cells, these condensates form membraneless organelles that can organize chemical reactions. However, little is known about the physical consequences of chemical activity in and around condensates. Working with model bovine serum albumin (BSA) condensates, we show that droplets swim along chemical gradients. Active BSA droplets loaded with urease swim toward each other. Passive BSA droplets show diverse responses to externally applied gradients of the enzyme's substrate and products. In all these cases, droplets swim toward solvent conditions that favor their dissolution. We call this behavior "dialytaxis", and expect it to be generic, as conditions which favor dissolution typically reduce interfacial tension, whose gradients are well-known to drive droplet motion through the Marangoni effect. These results could potentially suggest alternative physical mechanisms for active transport in living cells, and may enable the design of fluid micro-robots.
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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.