SKM 2023 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 56: Brownian Motion and Anomalous Diffusion

DY 56.5: Invited Talk

Friday, March 31, 2023, 10:30–11:00, ZEU 160

Transport and self-organization in living fluids — •Matthias Weiss — Experimental Physics I, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

Intracellular fluids, e.g. the eukariotic cytoplasm, are crowded with a plethora of macromolecules, bearing similarities to semidilute polymer solutions. Since many of the macromolecules are actively driven by ATP hydrolysis, these crowded living fluids are also equipped with genuine non-equilibrium properties. Using model systems from culture cells to extracts, we have explored fluctuation-driven transport and the self-organized formation of compartments in living fluids. As a result, we have observed via extensive single-particle tracking experiments that the generic mode of motion in the cytoplasm appears to be a driven, anti-persistent, and partially intermittent fractional Brownian motion process. On larger length scales, we have observed that a spontaneous, ATP-driven compartmentalization in cell extracts without priming template structures, features geometric properties and a dynamic coarse-graining like two-dimensional foams. Altogether, our experimental observations suggest that fluctuation-driven transport and self-organized space compartmentalization in living biofluids are well captured by few but robust physico-chemical principles.