Recent investigations in bacteria suggest that membraneless organelles play a crucial role in the subcellular organization of bacterial cells. However, the biochemical functions and assembly mechanisms of these compartments have not yet been completely characterized. This Review assesses the current methodologies used in the study of membraneless organelles in bacteria, highlights the limitations in determining the phase of complexes in cells that are typically an order of magnitude smaller than a eukaryotic cell, and identifies gaps in our current knowledge about the functional role of membraneless organelles in bacteria. Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) is one proposed mechanism for membraneless organelle assembly. Overall, we outline the framework to evaluate LLPS in vivo in bacteria, we describe the bacterial systems with proposed LLPS activity, and we comment on the general role LLPS plays in bacteria and how it may regulate cellular function. Lastly, we provide an outlook for super-resolution microscopy and single-molecule tracking as tools to assess condensates in bacteria.

中文翻译：

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相分离作为细菌的组织原理的出现

对细菌的最新研究表明，无膜细胞器在细菌细胞的亚细胞组织中起着至关重要的作用。然而，这些隔室的生化功能和组装机制尚未完全表征。这篇综述评估了细菌无膜细胞器研究中使用的当前方法，强调了在确定通常比真核细胞小一个数量级的细胞中复合物的相位方面的局限性，并指出了我们目前关于功能性的知识的空白无膜细胞器在细菌中的作用。液相-液相分离（LLPS）是一种用于无膜细胞器组装的机制。总体而言，我们概述了评估体内LLPS的框架在细菌中，我们描述了具有拟议的LLPS活性的细菌系统，并评论了LLPS在细菌中的一般作用以及它如何调节细胞功能。最后，我们为超分辨率显微镜和单分子跟踪提供了展望，以评估细菌中的冷凝物。