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Korean Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (생화학분자생물학회)
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Recent trends in studies of biomolecular phase separation

  • Kim, Chan-Geun (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Hwang, Da-Eun (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Kumar, Rajeev (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Chung, Min (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Eom, Yu-Gon (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Kim, Hyunji (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Koo, Da-Hyun (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University) ;
  • Choi, Jeong-Mo (Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University)
  • Received : 2022.05.20
  • Accepted : 2022.07.20
  • Published : 2022.08.31
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Abstract

Biomolecular phase separation has recently attracted broad interest, due to its role in the spatiotemporal compartmentalization of living cells. It governs the formation, regulation, and dissociation of biomolecular condensates, which play multiple roles in vivo, from activating specific biochemical reactions to organizing chromatin. Interestingly, biomolecular phase separation seems to be a mainly passive process, which can be explained by relatively simple physical principles and reproduced in vitro with a minimal set of components. This Mini review focuses on our current understanding of the fundamental principles of biomolecular phase separation and the recent progress in the research on this topic.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

We appreciate the constructive comments from two anonymous reviewers. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2021R1C1C1010943).

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