Abstract
Living cells are complex systems characterized by fluids crowded by hundreds of different elements, including, in particular, a high density of polymers. They are an excellent and challenging laboratory to study exotic emerging physical phenomena, where entropic forces emerge from the or-ganization processes of many-body interactions. The competition between microscopic and entropic forces may generate complex behaviors, such as phase transitions, which living cells may use to accomplish their functions. In the era of big data, where biological information abounds, but general principles and precise understanding of the microscopic interactions is scarce, entropy methods may offer significant information. In this work, we developed a model where a complex thermodynamic equilibrium resulted from the competition between an effective electrostatic short-range interaction and the entropic forces emerging in a fluid crowded by different sized polymers. The target audience for this article are interdisciplinary researchers in complex systems, particularly in thermodynamics and biophysics modeling.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 1166 |
Journal | Entropy |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2021 |
Keywords
- Biological fluids
- Crowding
- Entropic forces
- Polymer’s configurations
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Information Systems
- Mathematical Physics
- Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering