Accelerated Ostwald ripening by chemical activity

Abstract

Phase separation of biomolecular condensates promotes membrane-free compartmentalization in cells. The dynamics of these biocondensates is routinely regulated by energy-consuming processes. Here, we devise a theory pinpointing how active chemical reactions, interconverting molecules between phase-separating and inert forms, can drive faster condensate coarsening. We find that mass conservation limits droplet volume growth to being linear in time regardless of activity, resembling the passive Lifshitz-Slyozov law. However, if reactions are restricted to occur only outside droplets, the rate of Ostwald ripening can be increased by an arbitrarily large factor. Our theory is quantitatively supported by recent experiments on ripening in the presence of fueled interconversion reactions, under precisely the predicted conditions. We posit that the ability to induce rapid biocondensate coarsening can be advantageous in synthetic-biological contexts, e.g., as a regulator of metabolic channeling.