Alfano Caterina, Fichou Yann, Huber Klaus, Weiss Matthias, Spruijt Evan, Ebbinghaus Simon, De Luca Giuseppe, Morando Maria Agnese, Vetri Valeria, Temussi Piero Andrea, Pastore Annalisa
Structural Biology and Biophysics Unit, Fondazione Ri.MED, 90100 Palermo, Italy.
CNRS, Bordeaux INP, CBMN UMR 5248, IECB, University of Bordeaux, F-33600 Pessac, France.
Chem Rev. 2024 Mar 27;124(6):3186-3219. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.3c00615. Epub 2024 Mar 11.
It is now generally accepted that macromolecules do not act in isolation but "live" in a crowded environment, that is, an environment populated by numerous different molecules. The field of molecular crowding has its origins in the far 80s but became accepted only by the end of the 90s. In the present issue, we discuss various aspects that are influenced by crowding and need to consider its effects. This Review is meant as an introduction to the theme and an analysis of the evolution of the crowding concept through time from colloidal and polymer physics to a more biological perspective. We introduce themes that will be more thoroughly treated in other Reviews of the present issue. In our intentions, each Review may stand by itself, but the complete collection has the aspiration to provide different but complementary perspectives to propose a more holistic view of molecular crowding.
现在人们普遍认为，大分子并非孤立存在，而是“生活”在一个拥挤的环境中，即一个充满众多不同分子的环境。分子拥挤领域起源于20世纪80年代，但直到90年代末才被广泛接受。在本期中，我们讨论了受拥挤影响的各个方面，并需要考虑其影响。这篇综述旨在介绍该主题，并分析拥挤概念从胶体和聚合物物理到更具生物学视角的演变过程。我们介绍了将在本期其他综述中更深入探讨的主题。我们的意图是，每篇综述都可以独立存在，但完整的合集希望提供不同但互补的观点，以提出对分子拥挤更全面的看法。
