2021/07/15 by Jie Lin, Lin, Jie
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemical Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Proteins in Food Systems #Rheology and Fluid Dynamics Studies #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #Subcellular Processes (q-bio.SC) #cond-mat.soft #cond-mat.stat-mech #physics.bio-ph #q-bio.SC
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2107.07090
6 pages, 4 figures with a supplementary material
openalex publication_date 2021/07/15 · arxiv created 2021/08/02 · arxiv updated 2021/08/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Many experiments show that protein condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation exhibit aging rheological properties. Quantitatively, recent experiments by Jawerth et al. (Science 370, 1317, 2020) show that protein condensates behave as aging Maxwell fluids with an increasing relaxation time as the condensates age. Despite the universality of this aging phenomenon, a theoretical understanding of this aging behavior is lacking. In this work, we propose a mesoscopic model of protein condensates in which a phase transition from aging phase to non-aging phase occurs as the control parameter changes, such as temperature. The model predicts that protein condensates behave as viscoelastic Maxwell fluids at all ages, with the macroscopic viscosity increasing over time. The model also predicts that protein condensates are non-Newtonian fluids under a constant shear rate with the shear stress increasing over time. Our model successfully explains multiple existing experimental observations and also makes general predictions that are experimentally testable.