Overview
- Media reports detail a February 2 Nature Structural & Molecular Biology study showing that some biomolecular condensates contain ordered filament networks rather than being simple liquids.
- Cryo-electron tomography revealed PopZ assembles through a stepwise process into thin filaments that form a scaffold dictating condensate physical properties.
- Single-molecule FRET showed PopZ adopts distinct conformations inside versus outside condensates, linking protein shape to location within the droplet.
- A filament-deficient PopZ mutant produced more fluid condensates with lower surface tension and caused halted growth and failed DNA segregation in bacteria.
- The findings suggest new therapeutic strategies that act on condensate architecture in diseases such as cancer and ALS, which researchers describe as a developing direction.