Multi-scale computational studies of assembly, regulation, and phase separation in the cell nucleus

Davit Potoyan
Assistant Professor
Iowa State University

Cells of higher organisms are known for the hierarchical self-organization of their genomes, proteome, and associated biochemical reactions. Uncovering the underlying driving forces for cellular self-organization is a topic of significant importance in biosciences. Recent experiments have revealed the ubiquitous presence of nano and microscale membranless compartments in the nuclei of cells, generated through liquid-liquid phase separation of protein and nucleic acid components. Due to the heterogeneous and non-equilibrium environment, nuclear compartmentalization's thermodynamic and kinetic aspects are challenging to study both in vivo and in silico. 

Our group is developing and applying multi-scale computational models that use atomistic, coarse-grained, and phase-field techniques to study nuclear compartmentalization at different scales, in and out of equilibrium. In the talk, we will present a selection of recent results on protein-RNA phase transitions, mesoscale nuclear dynamics of chromatin phase separation, and detailed models of biomolecular condensates based on bioinformatics and atomistic simulations.

Speaker Bio
Davit Potoyan received his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics at the University of Maryland-College Park in 2012. He spent the next few years training as a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University developing theoretical and computational models for studying gene-regulatory networks and transcription factor DNA assembly. In 2017 Davit joined the Iowa State as a Caldwell Assistant Professor of Chemistry and currently holds a courtesy faculty appointment in BBMB and BCB programs. The research field of Professor Potoyan is in computational biophysics broadly defined. His group is using multi-scale computational tools rooted in statistical physics, bioinformatics, machine learning, and data analytics to work on various biologically motivated problems. Some of the active areas of research in the group include the condensation of disordered proteins and nucleic acids, enzyme dynamics, chromatin organization, and genetic regulatory networks.