TY - JOUR
T1 - Liquid demixing in elastic networks
T2 - Cavitation, permeation, or size selection?
AU - Ronceray, Pierre
AU - Mao, Sheng
AU - Košmrlj, Andrej
AU - Haataja, Mikko P.
N1 - Funding Information:
SM is supported by Beijing Innovation Center for Engineering Science and Advanced Technology (BIC-ESAT) at Peking University. SM, AK and MPH are supported by NSF through the Princeton University Materials Research Science and Engineering Center DMR-2011750. MPH also acknowledges support from a Princeton University Focused Research Team award on Engineering Living Organelles. PR is supported by the NSF through the Center for the Physics of Biological Function (PHY-1734030), by the “Investissements d'Avenir” French Government program managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR-16-CONV-0001) and by the Excellence Initiative of Aix-Marseille University - A*MIDEX.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 EPLA.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - In cells, phase-separated liquid condensates interact mechanically with surrounding elastic networks such as chromatin and cytoskeleton. By considering the trade-offs between elastic, wetting, and interfacial energies, we theoretically show that three droplet phases can be thermodynamically stable: macroscopic droplets that either cavitate or permeate the network, and mesh-size-limited microdroplets. We show that network strain stiffening further enhances this latter size-limitation effect. Our theory predicts the possibility of yet-unobserved droplet phases in the cytoplasm and nucleoplasm.
AB - In cells, phase-separated liquid condensates interact mechanically with surrounding elastic networks such as chromatin and cytoskeleton. By considering the trade-offs between elastic, wetting, and interfacial energies, we theoretically show that three droplet phases can be thermodynamically stable: macroscopic droplets that either cavitate or permeate the network, and mesh-size-limited microdroplets. We show that network strain stiffening further enhances this latter size-limitation effect. Our theory predicts the possibility of yet-unobserved droplet phases in the cytoplasm and nucleoplasm.
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U2 - 10.1209/0295-5075/ac56ac
DO - 10.1209/0295-5075/ac56ac
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85130149755
SN - 0295-5075
VL - 137
JO - EPL
JF - EPL
IS - 6
M1 - 67001
ER -