It's Raining Liquids!

Some great experiments lead to new and exciting discoveries and open doors to new areas of science. However, other experiments change the way a field is thinking about old problems. This was the case when it was discovered that P granules and other RNA-protein bodies can behave as liquid droplets. A simple experiment of imaging sheared P-granules dripping and fusing off of dissected germline nuclei from C. elegans embryos led to the transformative idea that cells could use a very simple phase transition—like water condensing into dew—to assemble and organize various molecules. This experiment led to the discovery of this liquid-like mechanism of intracellular organization in countless other organisms, not to mention the birth of a new way of thinking about about molecular biology.

• Germline P Granules Are Liquid Droplets That Localize by Controlled Dissolution/Condensation