Programmable DNA protonuclei reveal environmental context on protein phase separation
Johann Fritzen, Avik Samanta, Nele S. Kuhr, Antonia Preuß, Erin L. Sternburg, Lukas S. Stelzl, Jasper J. Michels, Dorothee Dormann, Andreas Walther · 2026
Read Programmable DNA protonuclei reveal environmental context on protein phase separation by Johann Fritzen, Avik Samanta, Nele S. Kuhr, Antonia Preuß, Erin L. Sternburg, Lukas S. Stelzl, Jasper J. Michels, Dorothee Dormann, Andreas Walther (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13627716.txt.
Description
Johann Fritzen and co-authors build a fake nucleus out of DNA to watch a disease-linked protein misbehave in realistic crowding. Proteins such as FUS, tied to nerve degeneration, clump into droplets inside cells, and those droplets can harden into harmful solids, yet test tubes miss the nucleus's tight, sticky environment. Their programmable protonuclei are DNA compartments whose sequence, squeeze, and springiness can be dialed, letting the team watch FUS partition and condense under near-nuclear conditions.
FUS behavior swung sharply with each dial, and simple binding tests in tubes failed to forecast what happened inside. Tuning the DNA mesh also slowed the dreaded hardening of droplets. Environment, the study shows, is not background for phase separation; it is a main author of it, and these compartments give it a laboratory.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Johann Fritzen, Avik Samanta, Nele S. Kuhr, Antonia Preuß, Erin L. Sternburg, Lukas S. Stelzl, Jasper J. Michels, Dorothee Dormann, Andreas Walther |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 72 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |