Biomolecular Condensation: A New Phase in Cancer Research.

Multicellularity was a watershed development in evolution. However, it also meant that individual cells could escape regulatory mechanisms that restrict proliferation at a severe cost to the organism: cancer. From the standpoint of cellular organization, evolutionary complexity scales to organize different molecules within the intracellular milieu. The recent realization that many biomolecules can "phase-separate" into membraneless organelles, reorganizing cellular biochemistry in space and time, has led to an explosion of research activity in this area. In this review, we explore mechanistic connections between phase separation and cancer-associated processes and emerging examples of how these become deranged in malignancy. SIGNIFICANCE: One of the fundamental functions of phase separation is to rapidly and dynamically respond to environmental perturbations. Importantly, these changes often lead to alterations in cancer-relevant pathways and processes. This review covers recent advances in the field, including emerging principles and mechanisms of phase separation in cancer.

Owl: electronic datasheet generator.

Owl ( www.owlcad.org ) is a biodesign automation tool that generates electronic datasheets for synthetic biological parts using common formatting. Data can be retrieved automatically from existing repositories and modified in the Owl user interface (UI). Owl uses the data to generate an HTML page with standard typesetting that can be saved as a PDF file. Here we present the Owl software tool in its alpha version, its current UI, its description of input data for generating a datasheet, its example datasheets, and the vision of the tool's role in biodesign automation.