Biological phase separation is known to be important for cellular organization, which has recently been extended to a new class of biomolecules that form liquid-like droplets coexisting with the surrounding cellular or extracellular environment. These droplets are termed membraneless organelles, as they lack a dividing lipid membrane, and are formed through liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Elucidating the molecular determinants of phase separation is a critical challenge for the field, as we are still at the early stages of understanding how cells may promote and regulate functions that are driven by LLPS. In this review, we discuss the role that disorder, perturbations to molecular interactions resulting from sequence, posttranslational modifications, and various regulatory stimuli play on protein LLPS, with a particular focus on insights that may be obtained from simulation and theory. We finally discuss how these molecular driving forces alter multicomponent phase separation and selectivity.

中文翻译：

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生物分子相分离：从分子驱动力到宏观特性。


众所周知，生物相分离对于细胞组织非常重要，最近已扩展到一类新的生物分子，这些生物分子形成与周围细胞或细胞外环境共存的液体状液滴。这些液滴被称为无膜细胞器，因为它们缺乏分隔的脂质膜，并且是通过液-液相分离（LLPS）形成的。阐明相分离的分子决定因素是该领域的一项关键挑战，因为我们仍处于了解细胞如何促进和调节 LLPS 驱动的功能的早期阶段。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了序列、翻译后修饰和各种调控刺激引起的紊乱、分子相互作用的扰动对蛋白质 LLPS 的作用，特别关注可以从模拟和理论中获得的见解。最后我们讨论这些分子驱动力如何改变多组分相分离和选择性。