Berlin 2024 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 15: Poster IIb
BP 15.27: Poster
Tuesday, March 19, 2024, 18:00–20:30, Poster F
How Crowding and Confinement change the Phase Behavior of Intrinsically Disordered Nuclear Proteins — •Janka Bauer1, Dorothee Dormann2,3, and Arash Nikoubashman1,4,5 — 1Institute of Physics, JGU Mainz, Germany — 2Biocenter, Institute of Molecular Physiology, JGU Mainz, Germany — 3Institute of Molecular Biology, Mainz, Germany — 4Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung, Dresden, Germany — 5Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
The liquid-liquid phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins plays an integral part for the formation of membraneless organelles in cells, which in turn have key functional and regulatory roles. Many studies on LLPS focus on in vitro experiments and bulk simulations in solution, but real-life systems are highly influenced by crowding within a cell as well as the confinement by the cell membrane. To mimic more closely conditions prevalent in cellular environments, we perform coarse-grained molecular simulations [1] of the low-complexity domains of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNPA1) and Fused in Sarcoma (FUS) in spherical confinement, where we systematically vary the fraction of the crowding agent polyethylene glycol (PEG). We further elucidate how the elasticity of a PEG network influences and even limits size and mobility of the protein condensates.
Keywords: Molecular Dynamics; intrinsically disordered proteins; phase separation; crowding; confinement