Liquid-liquid phase transitions in complex mixtures of proteins and other molecules produce crowded compartments supporting in vitro transcription and translation. We developed a method based on picoliter water-in-oil droplets to induce coacervation in Escherichia coli cell lysate and follow gene expression under crowded and noncrowded conditions. Coacervation creates an artificial cell-like en...

Cells organize their interior through membrane-bound organelles and membraneless condensates that are formed by liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS). The complex process of coacervation is involved in LLPS challenging to study living cells. Hence, studying cell-mimicking synthetic containers can yield valuable insights. Here, we review recent progress with respect (particularly coacervation) a...

Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) between tyrosine- and arginine-rich peptides are of biological importance. To understand the interactions proteins in condensed close analogy to complex coacervation, we run multiple umbrella calculations oligomers containing tyrosine (pY) arginine (pR). We find pR-pY complexation be energetically driven. Metadynamics simulations on monomers suggest that th...

Using the complex Langevin sampling strategy, field theoretic simulations are performed to study the equilibrium phase behavior and structure of symmetric polycation-polyanion mixtures without salt in good solvents. Static structure factors for the segment density and charge density are calculated and used to study the role of fluctuations in the electrostatic and chemical potential fields beyo...

We describe the synthesis and characterisation of novel photocatalytic multiphase micro-droplet reactors comprising TiO2 nanosheets dispersed in poly(diallyldimethylammonium) chloride and adenosine 5'-triphosphate or poly(ethylene glycol) 4-nonylphenyl 3-sulfopropyl complex coacervates. We demonstrate significant variations in the degree of equilibrium partitioning of small molecule dyes into t...