Cytoplasmic organization promotes protein diffusion in Xenopus extracts
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
The cytoplasm is highly organized. However, the extent to which this organization influences the dynamics of cytoplasmic proteins is not well understood. Here, we used Xenopus laevis egg extracts as a model system to study diffusion dynamics in organized versus disorganized cytoplasm. Such extracts are initially homogenized and disorganized, and self-organize into cell-like units over the course of tens of minutes. Using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, we observed that as the cytoplasm organizes, protein diffusion speeds up by about a factor of two over a length scale of a few hundred nanometers, eventually approaching the diffusion time measured in organelle-depleted cytosol. Even though the ordered cytoplasm contained organelles and cytoskeletal elements that might interfere with diffusion, the convergence of protein diffusion in the cytoplasm toward that in organelle-depleted cytosol suggests that subcellular organization maximizes protein diffusivity. The effect of organization on diffusion varies with molecular size, with the effects being largest for protein-sized molecules, and with the time scale of the measurement. These results show that cytoplasmic organization promotes the efficient diffusion of protein molecules in a densely packed environment.
Data generated in this study are available in this repository.
Description
Type of resource | Dataset, still image |
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Date modified | December 5, 2022 |
Publication date | June 29, 2022; June 29, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
Author | Huang, William Y. C. | |
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Author | Cheng, Xianrui | |
Author | Ferrell, James E. |
Subjects
Subject | Xenopus extracts |
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Genre | Data |
Genre | Image |
Genre | Data |
Genre | Data sets |
Genre | Dataset |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Huang, W., Cheng, X., and Ferrell, J. (2022). Cytoplasmic organization promotes protein diffusion in Xenopus extracts. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/fb711ym3445
Collection
Stanford Research Data
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- wych@stanford.edu
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