Abstract
Biological macromolecules have evolved over billions of years to function
inside cells, so it is not surprising that researchers studying the
properties of such molecules, either in extracts or in purified form,
take care to control factors that reflect the intracellular environment,
such as pH, ionic strength and composition, redox potential and the
concentrations of relevant metabolites and effector molecules. There
is one universal aspect of the cellular interior, however, that is
largely neglected--the fact that it is highly crowded with macromolecules.
It is proposed that the addition of crowding agents should become
as routine as controlling pH and ionic strength if we are to meet
the objective of studying biological molecules under more physiologically
relevant conditions.
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- escherichia
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