We present a thermodynamically consistent model describing the dynamics of a multicomponent mixture where one enzyme component catalyzes a reaction between other components. We find that the catalytic activity alone can induce phase separation for sufficiently active systems and large enzymes, without any equilibrium interactions between components. In the limit of fast reaction rates, binodal lines can be calculated using a mapping to an effective free energy. We also explain how this catalysis-induced phase separation can act to autoregulate the enzymatic activity, which points at the biological relevance of this phenomenon.

• Received 27 May 2022
• Accepted 9 September 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.158101

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

Published by the American Physical Society