Table 1. Relevant physical parameters of the different molecular crowding reagents.

crowding reagent	mol. mass distribution	conc. range tested	N	Φ*	L/LP	η range
	(g/mol)	% (w/v)		% (w/v)		(cSt)
PEG200	180–220	0.1–30	3.2	39	1.3	21–25
PEG300	270–330	0.1–30	5	28	2	31–35
PEG400	370–430	0.1–30	7	23	3	40–45
PEG2000	1810–2200	0.01–20	32	6	13	150–210
PEG4000	3740–4480	0.01–20	65	4	26	260–360
Ficoll400	300000–500000	0.001–10	1170	0.35	-	-
Dextran150	125000–175000	0.001–10	833	0.46	-	-
BSA	65000	0.001–10	609	0.6	-	-

Number of monomers/polymer (N), crossover polymer concentration (Φ*), polymer length/persistence length (L/Lp) and viscosity (η).