Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 32: Statistical Physics of Biological Systems III (joint session BP/DY)
BP 32.4: Talk
Thursday, March 12, 2026, 15:45–16:00, BAR/SCHÖ
A Minimal Theoretical Framework Linking Translation Activity to Stress-Induced Condensates — •Pascal S. Rogalla1, Alessandro Barducci1, and Luca Ciandrini1,2 — 1Centre de Biologie Structurale, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, INSERM, Montpellier, France. — 2Institut Universitaire de France
The formation of intracellular membraneless organelles, such as stress-granule-like condensates formed via liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), is a common response to cellular stress. RNA, including mRNA, promotes the assembly of many of these condensates, while the resulting aggregation of mRNAs reduces their availability for translation and thereby modulates ribosome loading. This establishes a feedback loop between condensate formation and translational activity. Here we develop a minimal physical model that makes this coupling explicit by combining Flory-Huggins theory for LLPS with the Totally Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process (TASEP) for ribosomal traffic on mRNAs. This hybrid framework provides a proof-of-principle description of how LLPS and translation dynamically influence one another. Our analysis reveals that the phase behaviour of both subsystems becomes mutually dependent: a low-occupancy ribosomal phase promotes mRNA aggregation, whereas a high-occupancy phase suppresses condensate formation. These results suggest that cells may regulate condensate formation through translation modulation and, conversely, that LLPS can reshape the translatome. This provides a first proof-of-principle framework for quantifying stress-induced reorganisation of the translational landscape.
Keywords: mRNA translation; Flory-Huggins; traffic models; condensates; phase separations