ERC Consolidator Grant · 2020
Organic phases in cells: Elucidating the physical nature of biological liquid droplets
Recently it has emerged that ‘membraneless organelles’ a commonly encountered body for compartmentalisation in Eukaryotic cells that include ‘nucleoli’ and ‘stress granules’, are phase separated liquid droplets suspended inside cells, formed from highly mobile disordered proteins. My research has focused on the prediction from physical theory, that the interior of liquid droplets should have very different chemical properties to the exterior dilute phase. By quantitatively analysing model biological liquid droplets formed by the Ddx4N1 protein, we discovered that their interior resembles an organic solvent (DMSO), can melt double stranded DNA, and selects which proteins can enter based on a…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.