{"doi":"10.1101/2020.12.26.424446","title":"Solubility product constant directs the formation of biomolecular condensates","abstract":"Abstract Biomolecular condensates, formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), are important cellular structures. Using stochastic network-free kinetic models, we establish a physical-chemical basis for the concentration threshold of heterotypic multivalent molecules required for LLPS. We associate phase separation with a bimodal partitioning of the cluster distribution into small oligomers vs. huge polymers. The simulations reveal that LLPS obeys the solubility product constant (Ksp): the product of monomer concentrations, accounting for ideal stoichiometries, does not exceed a threshold no matter how much additional monomer is added to the system – additional monomer is funneled into large clusters. The Ksp applies over a range of valencies and stoichiometries. However, consistent with the importance of disordered domains for LLPS, removing flexible linker domains funnels valency-matched monomers into a “dimer trap”, and Ksp no longer defines a threshold for large cluster formation. We propose Ksp as a new tool for elucidating biomolecular condensate biophysics.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":132034,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9573,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":60882,"name":"Michael L Blinov","orcid":"0000-0002-9363-9705","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":60890,"name":"Leslie M. Loew","orcid":"0000-0002-1851-4646","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":586968,"name":"Aniruddha Chattaraj","orcid":"0000-0002-7105-6621","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":24,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:16:07.542484Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}