Table 1 |.

Examples of the functional mechanisms of biomolecular condensates in biological processes

Functional mechanism	Biological process	In vitro	In vivo
Enhancement or suppression of biochemical reactions
Enhanced activity through concentrating enzymes and substrates	Carbon fixation	38,40	41
	Innate immune signaling	47	47
	RNA interference	50
	Microtubule nucleation/spindle assembly	54–57,199	54,199
	Cell-cell adhesion	59	58,59
	Autophagy	106	106
	RNA degradation	200	200
	RNA splicing	201	201
	Pre-mRNA processing		202,203
Inhibition of activity through sequestration	Transcriptional regulation		60,61
	Cell fate determination under stress		204
Modulation of activity through exclusion of factors	Adaptive immune signaling	63	63
	Synaptic transmission	65
Factors beyond concentration that modulate enzyme activity	Signal transduction	69
	Actin cytoskeleton	68	68
	Post-transcriptional regulation	70
	Bacterial cell polarization		205
	Membrane protein trafficking		72
Modulation of macromolecule folding	Nuclear protein homeostasis		27
	RNA homeostasis	28,29,76	28,29,76,77
Vectoral organization of biochemistry	Ribosome biogenesis	31,81	30,80
	Transgenerational RNAi inheritance		82
Establishing mesoscale architecture	Synaptic transmission	65,84,85,185	85
	DNA damage response	32,92,96,97	32,92,96,97
	DNA replication	98
	Autophagy	102,104–106	102,104–106
	Centriole biogenesis	206	206
Facilitating specific cellular localization	Localized neuronal translation	34	34
	Heterochromatin maintenance	120	120
	Germ cell fate maintenance	207	33
Buffering stochastic cellular noise	Signal transduction		35
Sensing and switching	Heat shock response	19,128	19,128
	Nutrient stress response	20,130,131	20,130,131
	Protein homeostasis		208
Unknown or debated functions	Transcription	149,150,152,156,209,210	149–156,209,210
	Chromatin	6,117,119,188,211	119,188,211
	Viral replication/evasion of host innate immunity		212–214
	Protein degradation	215	215
	Cell motility		216
	Sorting RNA to distinct granules	12	12
	Nucleocytoplasmic transport	217