AI Summary
This article discusses the importance of biological condensates in controlling internal cell biochemistry. These structures, which form compartments in cells without a membrane boundary, can affect protein and molecule activity, as well as provide an alternative energy source for biological processes. The study reveals that these condensates have global effects on cell biochemistry, impacting areas beyond their physical structures.
Most biological chemistry research has historically focused on the obvious cogs of machinery that keep life moving. Folding proteins, genetic activity and electrical signaling pathways are the easiest targets for finding irregularities that lead to disease.
Recent research, however, has pointed to a different type of cellular structure that may play an equally important role. Called biological condensates, these structures exist because of differences in density, like oil droplets floating in water, and form compartments inside of cells without needing the physical boundary of a membrane.
Previous studies have shown that these blobs can separate or trap together certain proteins and molecules, either hindering or promoting their activity. They have also revealed that these structures provide an alternative energy source that might power some aspects of biological chemistry.
These results, however, have focused on impacts created in the immediate vicinity of the condensates themselves. Researchers had not yet identified ways in which they might affect biochemistry far from their physical structures.
Now, in a new study published September 10 in the journal Cell, researchers from Duke University and the Washington University in