What Are Biomolecular Condensates?
This type of protein region often drives phase separation due to flexibility and multivalent interactions.
What are intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs)?
This term refers to the protein-rich scaffold outside cells that provides structure and support.
What is the extracellular matrix?
This classic principle states that a protein’s amino acid sequence determines its final folded structure.
What is Anfinsen’s dogma?
Transcriptional condensates enhance gene expression by concentrating this essential polymerase.
What is RNA polymerase II?
The fungal study showed that different wild isolates exhibit different sensitivities to this physical condition.
What is temperature?
Condensates can behave as liquids, solids, or this in-between state described in the Maxwell model.
What is viscoelastic?
This protein family, with its triple helix, is the foundational structural component of most ECMs.
What are collagens?
What domains are important for LLPS?
What are the Sticker and Spacer domains?
Transcriptional condensates organize the nucleus without these traditional boundaries.
What are membranes?
This fungal RNA-binding protein forms condensates that help control the cell cycle at different temperatures.
What is Whi3?
These structures help cells react quickly to environmental changes like temperature, pH, or stress.
What are adaptive membraneless organelles?
The ECM influences cell behavior by providing these two general types of signals.
What are mechanical and biochemical signals?
This term refers to the freedom of proteins or side chains to explore multiple conformations.
What is conformational entropy?
These DNA regions rich in enhancers often nucleate transcriptional condensates.
What are super-enhancers?
Organisms that cannot regulate their own body temperature are described using this term.
What are ectothermic organisms?
Condensates can influence reactions by concentrating molecules and altering this chemical property.
What is the local environment (e.g., pH or solvent conditions)?
The basement membrane is a thin ECM layer rich in laminin and this collagen type.
What is collagen IV?
Side-chain flexibility is often measured experimentally using this NMR-based parameter.
What is an order parameter?
Optogenetic tools can induce condensate formation using this type of light.
What is blue light?
Whi3 contains a region rich in this amino acid, which varies among strains and tunes temperature sensitivity.
What is glutamine?
In the “aging Maxwell fluid” paper, condensates become more solid-like over time through this universal process.
What is glass-like aging?
A major evolutionary advantage of the ECM was enabling organisms to become this.
What is multicellular?
Folding funnels describe how proteins navigate energy landscapes toward this final state.
What is the native state?
Condensates can amplify gene expression by increasing the local concentration of these two things.
What are transcription factors and target genes?
IDRs help organisms rapidly adapt because they are less restricted by this evolutionary constraint.
What is sequence conservation?