Mechanisms of Scaffold-Mediated Microcompartment Assembly and Size Control.

摘要: This article describes a theoretical and computational study of the dynamical assembly protein shell around complex consisting many cargo molecules long, flexible scaffold molecules. Our is motivated by bacterial microcompartments, which are proteinaceous organelles that assemble condensed droplet enzymes reactants. As in examples cytoplasmic liquid-liquid phase separation, condensation microcompartment interior driven proteins have weak multivalent interactions with cargo. results predict size, amount encapsulated cargo, pathways depend sensitively on properties scaffold, including its length valency scaffold-cargo interactions. Moreover, ability self-assembling shells to change their size accommodate different lengths depends crucially whether spontaneous curvature radius smaller or larger than characteristic elastic scale shell. Beyond natural these important implications for synthetic biology efforts target alternative encapsulation microcompartments viral shells. More broadly, elucidate how cells exploit coupling between self-assembly separation organize interiors.