Tinao Berta, Aragones Juan L, Arriaga Laura R
Department of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) and Instituto Nicolás Cabrera, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
ACS Macro Lett. 2023 Aug 15;12(8):1132-1137. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.3c00341. Epub 2023 Jul 27.
An aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) encapsulated within a vesicle organizes the vesicle core as two coexisting phases that partition encapsulated solutes. Here, we use microfluidic technologies to produce vesicles that efficiently encapsulate mixtures of macromolecules, providing a versatile platform to determine the phase behavior of ATPSs. Moreover, we use compartmentalized vesicles to investigate how membrane permeability affects the dynamics of the encapsulated ATPS. Designing a membrane selectively permeable to one of the components of the ATPS, we show that out-of-equilibrium phase separations formed by a rapid outflow of water can be spontaneously reversed by a slower outflow of the permeating component across the vesicle membrane. This dynamics may be exploited advantageously by cells to separate and connect metabolic and signaling routes within their nucleoplasm or cytoplasm depending on external conditions.
包裹在囊泡内的水相双相系统（ATPS）将囊泡核心组织成两个共存相，对包裹的溶质进行分配。在这里，我们使用微流控技术来制备能够有效包裹大分子混合物的囊泡，提供了一个通用平台来确定ATPS的相行为。此外，我们使用分隔的囊泡来研究膜通透性如何影响包裹的ATPS的动力学。通过设计对ATPS的一种组分具有选择性渗透性的膜，我们表明，由水的快速流出形成的非平衡相分离可以通过渗透组分在囊泡膜上较慢的流出而自发逆转。细胞可以根据外部条件，有利地利用这种动力学在其核质或细胞质内分离和连接代谢及信号传导途径。
