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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 8: Focus Session: Phase Separation in Biochemical Systems

BP 8.11: Vortrag

Dienstag, 6. September 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.