Understudied protein blobs have global effects on cell biochemistry

Everything around the topic of condensates, liquid-liquid phase separation, stress granules, etc. is quite interesting. And it seems like the importance of condensates and related phenomena has only been really understood within the past decade or so.

Protein condensates also play a role in several neurodegenerative diseases like ALS. See e.g. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cellular-neuroscience/a....

Paper title: Biomolecular condensates regulate cellular electrochemical equilibria

Summary of abstract: protein aggregates form electronegative buffer, with corresponding field extending to cell wall. Tested in e-coli: induced aggregates gave cell walls a negative charge, which reduced affinity to negatively-charged antibiotics.

No access to the article itself, but it's a long way from that to regulation or equilibria of any sort, so I'd be interested in reading it.

  The results show that they may be a previously missing mechanism by which cells modulate their internal electrochemistry... "Our research shows that condensates influence cells well beyond direct physical contact, almost like they have a wireless connection to how cells interact with the environment,"

Wow. It looks like they're plentiful in the brain, too: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10102667/ This seems like a mechanism far more likely to be impactful than Penrose and Hammerhoff's quantum tomfoolery, but something tells me it'll get way less attention and take at least 2-5 years to get solid info on either way. Still exciting for all us brain fans out there! Who cares about saving people by enhancing antibiotics, if it regulates electrical potential then let's talk mind. Could these be the bits of a neuronal bite?

Just for fun context, E. coli cell membrane potential is interestingly dynamic. Some waste is charged, so rather than forcing it out against gradient, the whole-membrane gradient is dropped briefly for a dump. With a florescent probe for electrostatics, you see E. coli cells flickering like (inverse) fireflies, with little swirls of charged waste during the flick-offs.

And the difficulty of finding video of this to share with you, seems a not-small part of why science education content remains so dreadful.

I've wondered if compartmentalization could serve as a foundational cross-cutting theme to reimagine introductory biology. Multi-scale, from proximity-on-molecule to organisms to ecosystems. If you've seen anything like that, I'd appreciate a comment - tnx.

Dang, I thought maybe someone had figured out what the vault organelle[0] is for. Not too disappointed though, this still sounds crazy.

That said, did anyone else have a really hard time parsing this article?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_(organelle)