Soft interactions and crowding

Abstract

The intracellular milieu is complex, heterogeneous and crowded-an environment vastly different from dilute solutions in which most biophysical studies are performed. The crowded cytoplasm excludes about a third of the volume available to macromolecules in dilute solution. This excluded volume is the sum of two parts: steric repulsions and chemical interactions, also called soft interactions. Until recently, most efforts to understand crowding have focused on steric repulsions. Here, we summarize the results and conclusions from recent studies on macromolecular crowding, emphasizing the contribution of soft interactions to the equilibrium thermodynamics of protein stability. Despite their non-specific and weak nature, the large number of soft interactions present under many crowded conditions can sometimes overcome the stabilizing steric, excluded volume effect.

Keywords: Crowding; Excluded volume; Osmolytes; Protein stability; Second virial coefficient; Synthetic polymers.

Fig. 1

Normalized Mayer f function (f) as a function of the distance (r, in arbitrary units) between two spheres. The sum of the shaded regions defines the excluded volume. The excluded volume can be made positive or negative by adjusting the strength of repulsive (red) and attractive (blue) interactions. Adapted from Rubenstein and Colby (2003)