TY - JOUR T1 - RNA is a critical element for the sizing and the composition of phase-separated RNA-protein condensates JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/457986 SP - 457986 AU - Marina Garcia-Jove Navarro AU - Shunnichi Kashida AU - Racha Chouaib AU - Sylvie Souquere AU - Gerard Pierron AU - Dominique Weil AU - Zoher Gueroui Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/11/08/457986.abstract N2 - Liquid-liquid phase separation is thought to be a key organizing principle in eukaryotic cells to generate highly concentrated dynamic assemblies, such as the RNP granules. Numerous in vitro approaches have validated this model, yet a missing aspect is to take into consideration the complex molecular mixture and promiscuous interactions found in vivo. Here we report the versatile scaffold “ArtiG” to generate concentration-dependent RNA-protein condensates within living cells, as a bottom-up approach to study the impact of co-segregated endogenous components on phase separation. We demonstrate that intracellular RNA seeds the nucleation of the condensates, as it provides molecular cues to locally coordinate the formation of endogenous high order RNP assemblies. Interestingly, the co-segregation of intracellular components ultimately impacts the size of the phase-separated condensates. Thus, RNA arises as an architectural element that can influence the composition and the morphological outcome of the condensate phases in an intracellular context. ER -