[초청강연] Molecular Grammar of Biomolecular Phase Separation

Molecular Grammar of Biomolecular Phase Separation

Jeong-Mo Choi1

1Department of Chemistry, Pusan National University, Busan 46241, Republic of Korea

*E-mail: jmchoi@pusan.ac.kr

In the last decade, there has been a growing interest on the phase behavior of biomolecules,
especially after demonstration of its biological implications such as reversible
formation/dissociation of membrane-less cellular organelles. Several model systems have been
discovered and studied, and one of crucial questions in the field is how the phase behavior is
encoded in a sequence. Inspired by observations on a subset of disordered proteins that
apparently exhibit a rather simple molecular grammar for phase behavior, we developed
stickers-and-spacers framework adapted from the field of associative polymers for
understanding how multivalent protein and RNA molecules drive phase transitions that give
rise to biomolecular condensates. In this talk, I will introduce the framework and discuss its
applications in explanation and prediction of biomolecular phase behaviors.