Rigidity of a spherical capsule switches the localization of encapsulated particles between inner and peripheral regions under crowding condition: simple model on cellular architecture.
We have investigated the inhomogeneous interior of confined spherical cavities as capsules containing encapsulated binary hard sphere mixtures for different compositions and cavity wall rigidity. Such a greatly simplified model manifests the effects of macromolecular crowding arising from excluded volume interactions in a tiny cell or a cellular nucleus. By fixing the number of large particles, the level of crowding is adjusted by changing the amount of small hard spheres in the cavity. For a rigid cavity, large spheres tend to pack in liquid-like order apart from the surface to the center of the cavity as the crowding level is increased. Whereas, for a soft cavity, larger spheres tend to blend with small spheres in the peripheral region at near the boundary of the cavity, and are susceptible to be depleted from the interior of the cavity as the cavity becomes more crowded. These results may help future elucidation of the thermodynamic pathways to stabilize the inhomogeneous structure of mixtures confined in cavities, such as the derepression of genome materials around the interior rim of the nucleus in a cancerous cell.
Department of Chemistry, College of Staten Island, City University of New York, 2800 Victory Boulevard, Staten Island, New York 10314, USA.
Chwen-Yang
CY
Shew
Department of Chemistry, College of Staten Island, City University of New York, 2800 Victory Boulevard, Staten Island, New York 10314, USA.
Kenta
K
Kondo
Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences, Doshisha University, Kyoto 610-0394, Japan.
Kenichi
K
Yoshikawa
D002467:Cell Nucleus / Q000737:chemistry; D003198:Computer Simulation; D016678:Genome; D042541:Intracellular Space / Q000737:chemistry*; D046911:Macromolecular Substances / Q000737:chemistry*; D008954:Models, Biological; D008958:Models, Molecular; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D013816:Thermodynamics
D046911:Macromolecular Substances