Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2023 APS March Meeting
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session N11: Biological Active Matter IV
11:30 AM–2:18 PM,
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Room: Room 203
Sponsoring
Unit:
DBIO
Chair: Suraj Shankar, Harvard University
Abstract: N11.00001 : Cytoskeletal dynamics generate active liquid-liquid phase separation.Alexandra Tayar, Weizmann Institute of Science
11:30 AM–12:06 PM
Presenter:
Alexandra Tayar
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Author:
Alexandra Tayar
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Liquid-Liquid phase separation (LLPS) has been of fundamental importance in the assembly of thermally driven materials and has recently emerged as an organizational principle for living systems. Biological phase separation is driven out of equilibrium through complex enzyme composition, chemical reactions, and mechanical activity, which reveals a gap in our understanding of this fundamental phenomenon. Here we study the impact of mechanical activity on LLPS. We design a DNA-based LLPS system coupled to flows through molecular motors and a cytoskeleton network. Active stress at an interface of a liquid droplet suppressed phase separation and stabilized a single-phase regime well beyond the equilibrium binodal curve. The phase diagram out of equilibrium revealed a 3-dimensional phase space that depends on temperature and local molecular activity. Similar dynamics and structures are observed in simulations, suggesting that suppression of liquid phase separation by active stress is a generic feature of liquid phase separation.
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