Crowding and confinement act in concert to slow DNA diffusion within cell-sized droplets
Mehdi Shafiei Aporvari, Steven Dang, Juexin Marfai, Kara Coursey, Ryan McGorty, Rae M. Robertson‐Anderson
Abstract
decrease up to 2 orders of magnitude as droplet size decreases-an effect that is enhanced by increased crowding. We mathematically model the coupling of crowding and confinement by combining polymer scaling theories with confinement-induced depletion effects. The generality and tunability of our system and models render them applicable to elucidating wide-ranging crowded and confined systems.
Topics & Concepts
Macromolecular crowdingCrowdingMacromoleculeDNABiophysicsDiffusionPolymer physicsScalingNanotechnologyChemical physicsChemistryPhysicsPolymerMaterials scienceBiologyGeometryThermodynamicsNeuroscienceMathematicsBiochemistryOrganic chemistryNanopore and Nanochannel Transport StudiesDiffusion and Search DynamicsDNA and Nucleic Acid Chemistry