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Biomolecular condensates: Are they condensate - EurekAlert
<p>Cells buzz with millions of different biomolecules that diffuse chaotically through their substructures, yet they manage to ensure exquisite functional and spatial specificity. Distinct biomolecules interact specifically in cellular processes and lead to targeted cellular responses. This is often achieved by directing biomolecules to subcellular compartments. Compartments like mitochondria are spatially separated by membranes. Others, like nucleoli, have no membrane boundaries at all. How these membraneless compartments form is still one of the greatest mysteries in biology. In recent years, a phenomenon called liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) has been proposed as the driving force of compartment assembly. The group of Andrea Musacchio, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, has now developed a validation strategy to evaluate the role of LLPS in compartment formation and to assess common methods for detecting LLPS properties. Applying the strategy to the process of centromere assembly during cell division, which was proposed to be driven by an LLPS scaffold (the chromosome passenger complex, or CPC), failed to identify LLPS as a crucial driver, confirming the low predictive power of these assays. This new strategy has the potential to become an important tool to validate the role of other potential LLPS drivers identified so far.</p>
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