The interior of an eukaryotic cell represents a highly inhomogeneous and crowded milieu where in addition to the high content of various biological macromolecules, numerous proteinaceous membrane-less organelles (PMLOs) are present, which are condensed liquid droplets created by the reversible and highly controlled liquid-liquid phase transitions. Since protein and nucleic acid concentrations inside these cellular bodies are noticeably higher than those of the crowded cytoplasm and nucleoplasm, PMLOs can be considered as overcrowded liquid entities. Although PMLOs are different in size, shape, and composition, they almost invariantly contain intrinsically disordered proteins. This suggests that the formation of these phase-separated droplets is dependent on intrinsic disorder. The goal of this presentation is to introduce the protein intrinsic disorder phenomenon and to show why intrinsic disorder might be crucial for the biological liquid-liquid phase transitions and for the formation of PMLOs.

Intrinsic disorder and overcrowding

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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