Center for the Physics of Biological Function, Princeton University, Princeton, United States; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States; Department of Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
Andrew GT Pyo
Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, United States
Ross Kliegman
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
Yoyo Jiang
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, United States
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, United States; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, United States
Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, United States; Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton, United States
A hallmark of biomolecular condensates formed via liquid-liquid phase separation is that they dynamically exchange material with their surroundings, and this process can be crucial to condensate function. Intuitively, the rate of exchange can be limited by the flux from the dilute phase or by the mixing speed in the dense phase. Surprisingly, a recent experiment suggests that exchange can also be limited by the dynamics at the droplet interface, implying the existence of an ‘interface resistance’. Here, we first derive an analytical expression for the timescale of condensate material exchange, which clearly conveys the physical factors controlling exchange dynamics. We then utilize sticker-spacer polymer models to show that interface resistance can arise when incident molecules transiently touch the interface without entering the dense phase, i.e., the molecules ‘bounce’ from the interface. Our work provides insight into condensate exchange dynamics, with implications for both natural and synthetic systems.
