title: Assemblages: functional units formed by cellular phase separation.
abstract: The partitioning of intracellular space beyond membrane-bound organelles can be achieved with collections of proteins that are multivalent or contain low-complexity, intrinsically disordered regions. These proteins can undergo a physical phase change to form functional granules or other entities within the cytoplasm or nucleoplasm that collectively we term "assemblage." Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) play an important role in forming a subset of cellular assemblages by promoting phase separation. Recent work points to an involvement of assemblages in disease states, indicating that intrinsic disorder and phase transitions should be considered in the development of therapeutics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057 jat42@georgetown.edu.
authors.forename: Jeffrey A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Toretsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology and Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037 Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology and Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037.
authors.forename: Peter E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001692:Biological Transport; D022083:Cytoplasmic Structures / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D064267:Intrinsically Disordered Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D022022:Nuclear Pore / Q000378:metabolism; D044367:Phase Transition; D011485:Protein Binding; D055503:Protein Multimerization
chemical_list: D064267:Intrinsically Disordered Proteins