Modelling phase-separation: A physical mechanism to control genome folding and gene regulation

Phase-separation plays a critical role within cell nuclei. Indeed, extensive experimental work has been done showing the importance of phase-separated condensates in the cell nucleus at different scales, ranging from liquid droplets of proteins to the bigger nucleoli, and there is growing evidence that this physical mechanism is crucial to orchestrate organization of genome architecture and to control gene regulation. On the other hand, computational and theoretical studies have been done to quantitatively explore the physics of this mechanism as well as its influence on biological processes relevant for genome activity, as formation of contacts between gene-enhancer and chromatin re-modelling. Methods commonly employed to study those systems include models based on classical statistical mechanics and numerical strategies such as Monte Carlo or molecular dynamics simulations. This short review focuses on recent theoretical and computational advances in this research field.