Role of desolvation on biomolecular liquid–liquid phase separation
Kai Zhang, Zhiyu Peng, Wenfei Li, Wei Wang, Bin Zhang, Qiang Cui · 2026
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Description
Kai Zhang and five colleagues add the missing physics of water removal to computer models of biomolecular phase separation. Inside cells, proteins and RNA gather into droplets called condensates, and forming them requires chains to shed their water shells while sticking to one another. Popular coarse-grained models skip the water entirely, which limits their accuracy. Guided by detailed atomic simulations and lab measurements, the team built drying costs directly into a simpler model's energy rules.
Applied to disordered proteins that form droplets, the corrected model matched experiments more closely and showed how desolvation steers both the stability and the motion of condensates. The work matters beyond modeling technique, since faulty condensates are tied to disease. A model that respects the water step gives researchers a sharper tool for predicting when droplets form, dissolve, or harden into harmful aggregates.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kai Zhang, Zhiyu Peng, Wenfei Li, Wei Wang, Bin Zhang, Qiang Cui |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 75 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |