Protein translation can fluidize bacterial cytoplasm.

ABSTRACT: The cytoplasm of bacterial cells is densely packed with highly polydisperse macromolecules that exhibit size-dependent glassy dynamics. Recent research has revealed that metabolic activities in living cells can counteract the glassy nature of these macromolecules, allowing the cell to maintain critical fluidity for its growth and function. While it has been proposed that the crowded cytoplasm is responsible for this glassy behavior, a detailed analysis of the size-dependent nature of the glassy dynamics and an explanation for how cellular activity induces its fluidization remains elusive. Here, we use a combination of computational models and targeted experiments to show that entropic segregation of the protein synthesis machinery from the chromosomal DNA causes size-dependent spatial orga

SUBMITTER: Bera P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11630519 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature