Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 8: Focus Session: Phase Separation in Biochemical Systems
BP 8.11: Talk
Tuesday, September 6, 2022, 12:30–12:45, H15
Chemically Active Wetting — •Susanne Liese1, Xueping Zhao2, Frank Jülicher2, and Christoph Weber1 — 1University of Augsburg, Germany — 2MPI Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
In living cells, the wetting of condensed phases at membrane surfaces provides a mechanism for positioning biomolecules. Biomolecules can also bind to such membrane surfaces. In living cells, this binding is often chemically active since it is maintained away from equilibrium by supplying energy and matter. Here, we investigate how active binding on membranes affects the wetting of condensates. To this, we derive the non-equilibrium thermodynamic theory of active wetting. We find that active binding significantly alters the wetting behavior leading to non-equilibrium steady states with condensate shapes reminiscent of a fried egg or a mushroom. We further show that such condensate shapes are determined by the strength of active binding in the dense and dilute phases, respectively. Strikingly, such condensate shapes can be explained by an electrostatic analogy where binding sinks and sources correspond to electrostatic dipoles along the triple line. Through this analogy, we can understand how fluxes at the triple line control the three-dimensional shape of condensates.