Nature Communications (Jul 2021)

A multi-step nucleation process determines the kinetics of prion-like domain phase separation

  • Erik W. Martin,
  • Tyler S. Harmon,
  • Jesse B. Hopkins,
  • Srinivas Chakravarthy,
  • J. Jeremías Incicco,
  • Peter Schuck,
  • Andrea Soranno,
  • Tanja Mittag

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24727-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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The nucleation mechanisms of biological protein phase separation are poorly understood. Here, the authors perform time-resolved SAXS experiments with the low-complexity domain (LCD) of hnRNPA1 and uncover multiple kinetic regimes on the micro- to millisecond timescale. Initially, individual proteins collapse. Nucleation then occurs via two steps distinguished by their protein cluster size distributions.