Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 14: Poster Session I

BP 14.23: Poster

Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 10:00–12:30, P3

Cooperative Effects in Compartmentalized Irreversible Self-Assembly — •Severin Angerpointner, Richard Swiderski, and Erwin Frey — Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

From biomolecular compartments, protein patterns to porous rocks: Many biological and chemical systems like living cells or prebiotic chambers exhibit some form of spatial organization which separates biochemical processes. This is known to play a key role in the assembly of virus capsids or the enrichment of prebiotic chemicals. We systematically explore the effects of such spatial separation on the self-assembly of irreversibly binding identical particles. We show that already in a simplified model of two coupled biochemical compartments cooperative effects emerge through limiting compartment exchange. Further, these findings generalize to spatially extended systems like intracellular chemical gradients or membrane-assisted assembly.

Keywords: Self-assembly; Biochemical compartments; Spatial organization