Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Trends Cell Biol. 2019 Aug;29(8):612-622. doi: 10.1016/j.tcb.2019.04.001. Epub 2019 May 7.
There is currently intense interest in the idea that many membraneless organelles might assemble through phase separation of their constituent molecules into biomolecular 'condensates' that have liquid-like properties. This idea is intuitively appealing, especially for complex organelles such as centrosomes, where a liquid-like structure would allow the many constituent molecules to diffuse and interact with one another efficiently. I discuss here recent studies that either support the concept of a liquid-like centrosome or suggest that centrosomes are assembled upon a more solid, stable scaffold. I suggest that it may be difficult to distinguish between these possibilities. I argue that the concept of biomolecular condensates is an important advance in cell biology, with potentially wide-ranging implications, but it seems premature to conclude that centrosomes, and perhaps other membraneless organelles, are necessarily best described as liquid-like phase-separated condensates.
目前，人们对许多无膜细胞器可能通过其组成分子相分离形成具有液态特性的生物分子“凝聚物”而组装的观点产生了浓厚的兴趣。这个想法直观上很有吸引力，特别是对于中心体等复杂细胞器，在中心体中，液态结构将允许许多组成分子有效地扩散和相互作用。我在这里讨论了最近的研究，这些研究要么支持液态中心体的概念，要么表明中心体是在更固体、更稳定的支架上组装的。我认为，区分这些可能性可能很困难。我认为，生物分子凝聚物的概念是细胞生物学的一个重要进展，具有潜在的广泛影响，但现在就得出结论认为中心体，也许还有其他无膜细胞器，必然最好被描述为液态相分离的凝聚物，还为时过早。
