Title: Effects of Macromolecular Crowding on the Assembly of Self-Associating Particles: Implications to Nuclear Compartmentalization
Abstract: Crowded nature of biological cells has profound influences on cellular structure and function, and its importance in nuclear compartmentalization has been suggested in recent experiments. Using computer simulations of a simple physical model, we investigated the phase behavior of self-associating particles in the presence of crowding agents, as a model to study crowding effects on the nuclear compartmentalization. We show that the phase diagram of self-associating particles is altered significantly due to crowding and the extent of such crowding effect is affected when interactions between self-associating particles and crowding agents are considered. We conclude that the presence of non-attractive crowding agents with volume exclusion interactions plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of nuclear compartments.