Cell complexity: liquid phase separation (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 27, 2018, 00:00 (2190 days ago) @ David Turell

A newer article with new discoveries:

https://www.quantamagazine.org/

"Think of liquids with different properties that don’t really mix but, under specific circumstances, cluster and separate like the shifting blobs in a lava lamp. That phenomenon, also known as liquid-liquid phase separation, was once considered to be an exclusively chemical process. But less than a decade ago, Brangwynne became one of the first to observe it happening inside cells as well, and ever since then, biologists have been trying to learn its significance.

"Now scientists are beginning to understand that evolution has tuned certain proteins to act in aggregate like liquids. Through phase separation, they spontaneously self-assemble into dynamic, membrane-free, dropletlike structures that can perform needed tasks in cells.

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"One of the latest findings is that phase separation allows certain types of cells to cheat death when they are deprived of nutrients or otherwise put under stress. Phase separation enables the cells to turn a large part of their cytoplasm from a liquid to a solid — essentially putting themselves into a hardy condition of stasis until the nutrients return.

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"That initial work by Brangwynne, Eckmann and Hyman triggered an avalanche of papers investigating the assembly and dispersal of various cytoplasmic proteins under various conditions. The evidence was getting stronger that cells had evolved a fine-tuned mechanism for organizing some of their internal structure and processes through phase separation — that is, letting proteins self-assemble into structures that could perform distinct functions.

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"Zaburdaev and several of his colleagues, including Alberti, decided to check what happens to proteins when cells are subjected to stresses such as falling temperatures and the sudden disappearance of nutrients. The surprising result they uncovered was that phase separation can be part of a cell’s survival mechanism.

"The cells’ behavior could be likened to hibernation for bears. The animal lays still in a dormant state for weeks, minimizing its expenditure of energy. At a cellular level, phase separation helps the gelatinous cytoplasm make a protective transition into something more solid. “In this ‘solidified’ state, a cell can survive starvation,” Zaburdaev said.

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"Simply by varying the acidity of the [yeast] cells’ environment, the scientists could induce them to switch into this survival state, even without taking away the cells’ nutrients. The cells could rest this way for hours or even days. “We found that the cells are so rigid that they keep their shape” instead of being deformable, Alberti said. They “transition into a completely different material state.”

"When their normal pH was later restored, the cells returned to normal, “dividing and living happily,” Zaburdaev said.

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"The team found that when a protein has a certain identifiable domain or region, the protein will form easily reversible gels. In the absence of this domain, the protein forms an irreversible type of assembly — permanently removing it from further use.

"In effect, this domain modifies the protein’s phase behavior and keeps it reusable. “The domain provides a new possibility, for that protein to assemble into a benign kind of gel and not something from which you cannot come back,” Alberti said.

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"Such results imply that nature has designed the domain sequences to tune the proteins’ material properties.

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"Recently, for example, the neuroscientist Pietro De Camilli at Yale University and his colleagues found evidence that phase separation might be involved in the controlled release of neurotransmitters at synapses. It had been observed that vesicles containing neurotransmitters routinely hover in clusters near the presynaptic membrane until they are needed. De Camilli’s team showed that a scaffolding protein called synapsin 1 condenses into a liquid phase, along with other proteins, to bind the vesicles into these clusters. When the synapsin is phosphorylated, the droplet rapidly dissipates and the vesicles are freed to spill the neurotransmitters into the synapse."

Comment: Other than the neurological finding directly above, this is yeast research, and how it applies to multicellular organisms is not known. But what is seen at the single cell stage is usually finally found in complex organisms. Too complex for any mechanism than design of specific proteins with this property .