title: How are molecular crowding and the spatial organization of a biopolymer interrelated.
abstract: In a crowded cellular interior, dissolved biomolecules or crowders exert excluded volume effects on other biomolecules, which in turn control various processes including protein aggregation and chromosome organization. As a result of these effects, a long chain molecule can be phase-separated into a condensed state, redistributing the surrounding crowders. Using computer simulations and a theoretical approach, we study the interrelationship between molecular crowding and chain organization. In a parameter space of biological relevance, the distributions of monomers and crowders follow a simple relationship: the sum of their volume fractions rescaled by their size remains constant. Beyond a physical picture of molecular crowding it offers, this finding explains a few key features of what has been known about chromosome organization in an E. coli cell.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada. byha@uwaterloo.ca.
authors.forename: Chanil
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4609-0860
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.affiliation: School of Computational Sciences, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul 02455, Korea. hyeoncb@kias.re.kr.
authors.forename: Changbong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hyeon
authors.affiliation: Supercomputing Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, Daejeon, 34141, Korea. yjung@kisti.re.kr.
authors.forename: Youngkyun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada. byha@uwaterloo.ca and School of Computational Sciences, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul 02455, Korea. hyeoncb@kias.re.kr.
authors.forename: Bae-Yeun
authors.initials: BY
authors.lastname: Ha
mesh_terms: D001704:Biopolymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004926:Escherichia coli; D011506:Proteins
chemical_list: D001704:Biopolymers; D011506:Proteins