Gutierrez Rafael M, Shubeita George T, Murade Chandrashekhar U, Guo Jianfeng
Science Division, Physics, New York University Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Básicas y Aplicadas, Universidad Antonio Nariño, Bogotá 111321, Colombia.
Entropy (Basel). 2021 Sep 4;23(9):1166. doi: 10.3390/e23091166.
Living cells are complex systems characterized by fluids crowded by hundreds of different elements, including, in particular, a high density of polymers. They are an excellent and challenging laboratory to study exotic emerging physical phenomena, where entropic forces emerge from the organization processes of many-body interactions. The competition between microscopic and entropic forces may generate complex behaviors, such as phase transitions, which living cells may use to accomplish their functions. In the era of big data, where biological information abounds, but general principles and precise understanding of the microscopic interactions is scarce, entropy methods may offer significant information. In this work, we developed a model where a complex thermodynamic equilibrium resulted from the competition between an effective electrostatic short-range interaction and the entropic forces emerging in a fluid crowded by different sized polymers. The target audience for this article are interdisciplinary researchers in complex systems, particularly in thermodynamics and biophysics modeling.
活细胞是复杂的系统，其特征是充满了数百种不同元素的流体，特别是聚合物的高密度。它们是研究奇异新兴物理现象的绝佳且具有挑战性的实验室，在这些现象中，熵力源自多体相互作用的组织过程。微观力与熵力之间的竞争可能产生复杂行为，如相变，活细胞可能利用这些相变来实现其功能。在大数据时代，生物信息丰富，但微观相互作用的一般原理和精确理解却很匮乏，熵方法可能会提供重要信息。在这项工作中，我们开发了一个模型，其中复杂的热力学平衡源于有效静电短程相互作用与在由不同大小聚合物拥挤的流体中出现的熵力之间的竞争。本文的目标读者是复杂系统领域的跨学科研究人员，特别是热力学和生物物理建模方面的研究人员。
