Fig. 5: The thermal trap creates and separates two populations of coacervate droplets. | Nature Chemistry

Fig. 5: The thermal trap creates and separates two populations of coacervate droplets.

From: Non-equilibrium conditions inside rock pores drive fission, maintenance and selection of coacervate protocells

Fig. 5

a–c, Dual-channel fluorescence images of the CM-Dex:pLys:RNA coacervates in the thermal trap. CM-Dex and RNA were differentially labelled with FITC 0.1% and ROX 100%, respectively. The single pictures of the composite (a) are shown in b and c, respectively. Small droplets (<15 µm) enriched in RNA and pLys are formed in the bulk. Droplets enriched of all three components form instead at the gas–water interface. d–f, pLys channel (0.1% FITC-labelled) (d), RNA channel (e) and composite image (f), showing co-localization between RNA and pLys in the bulk droplets. g–i, no RNA (g), 0.2 µM RNA (h) and 2 µM RNA (i) showing the droplets at the gas–water interface (CM-Dex channel). j, Quantification of the size of CM-Dex:pLys droplets as a function of RNA concentration. The bars indicate the average size and standard deviation of nine different coacervate droplets.

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