ArticleBiophysical journal2025
Separation of sticker-spacer energetics governs the coalescence of metastable condensates.
Article in Biophysical journal, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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12 citing papers in PubMed.
- The thermodynamic state map of biomolecular condensates.Communications biology · 2026Review
- Programmable Coacervates Based on Minimalist Sticker-Spacer Frameworks: Chemical Design, Functions, and Emerging Applications.ACS applied materials & interfaces · 2026Review
- CASPULE: A computational tool to study sticker spacer polymer condensates.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- An ALS-associated mutation in the C-terminal α-helix of TDP-43 uncouples condensate formation and amyloid assembly.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Article
- Origin of the ionic-strength dependent reentrant behavior in the liquid-liquid phase separation of uncharged intrinsically disordered proteins.Communications chemistry · 2026Article
- CASPULE: A computational tool to study sticker spacer polymer condensates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The Origin of the Ionic-strength Dependent Reentrant Behavior in Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation of Uncharged IDPs.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A disordered linker in the Polycomb protein Polyhomeotic tunes phase separation and oligomerization.Molecular cell · 2025Article
- Phase Separation: Orchestrating Biological Adaptations to Environmental Fluctuations.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Decoding biomolecular condensate dynamics: an energy landscape approach.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Modeling biomolecular condensates across scales: Atomistic, coarse-grained, and data-driven approaches.Advances in physics: X · 2025Article
- Preserving condensate structure and composition by lowering sequence complexity.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
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Abstract
Biological condensates often emerge as a multidroplet state and never coalesce into one large droplet within the experimental timespan. Previous work revealed that the sticker-spacer architecture of biopolymers may dynamically stabilize the multidroplet state. Here, we simulate the condensate coalescence using metadynamics approach and reveal two distinct physical mechanisms underlying the fusion of droplets. Condensates made of sticker-spacer polymers readily undergo a kinetic arrest when stickers exhibit slow exchange while fast exchanging stickers at similar levels of saturation allow merger to equilibrium states. On the other hand, condensates composed of homopolymers fuse readily until they reach a threshold density. Increase in entropy upon intercondensate mixing of chains drives the fusion of sticker-spacer chains. We map the range of mechanisms of kinetic arrest from slow sticker exchange dynamics to density mediated in terms of energetic separation of stickers and spacers. Our predictions appear to be in qualitative agreement with recent experiments probing dynamic nature of protein-RNA condensates.
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