Cell physics

Ball, Philip

doi:10.1038/nmat3474

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Published: 23 October 2012

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Cell physics

Philip Ball

Nature Materials volume 11, page 915 (2012)Cite this article

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That's now changing. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that cells are constructed to actively manipulate and exploit phase changes. It has long been recognized that the clustering ('rafting') of different lipids in the two-dimensional fluids of cell membranes is an example of liquid–liquid phase separation that permits the sequestering of membrane proteins, with consequences for exo- and endocytosis and cell signalling¹. Phase separation within the cytoplasm creates structures such as the protein–RNA complexes called P granules involved in germline formation, and the liquid-like nucleoli within which ribosomes are formed². A phase transition analogous to capillary drying (abrupt expulsion of water) may drive the hydrophobic collapse of proteins and formation of some multi-subunit protein arrays^3,4. Phase transitions create a large response to small changes in environmental conditions: a widely useful phenomenon that might result in many biological systems, such as neuronal networks and protein conformations, being tuned to sit close to a phase boundary⁵.

That possibility is further supported by a proposal that the two-dimensional liquids of biological membranes might operate close to the miscibility critical point of its components⁶. In this situation they would experience large fluctuations that can give rise to a relatively long-ranged Casimir force, an attractive interaction that could be exploited in the rearrangements that accompany cell signalling.

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