Wei Chen @weichen2.bsky.social · 27/03/2026Under crowding conditions, peaks also shift, but differently depending on the crowder. We compared relative residue-level patterns of these shifts across conditions and asked: Are crowders simply enhancing self-interactions, or doing something else? 100
Wei Chen @weichen2.bsky.social · 27/03/2026We used carbon direct-detect NMR (our favorite). This lets us easily see prolines, which are highly abundant in the CTD and other IDRs and not very straightforward to see in standard NMR. So we get a much more complete picture of the protein. 121
Wei Chen @weichen2.bsky.social · 27/03/2026We looked at phase separation of the Pol II CTD (an IDR) under different crowding conditions: - Polymer crowders (PEG, dextran, Ficoll) - Protein crowders (BSA, lysozyme) - Reconstituted E. coli lysate They do not behave the same. 100