DOI: 10.25349/d95g66
title: Data from: Enzymatic degradation of liquid droplets of DNA is modulated near the phase boundary

description: Biomolecules can undergo liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), forming
 dense droplets that are increasingly understood to be important for
 cellular function. Analogous systems are studied as early-life
 compartmentalization mechanisms, for applications as protocells, or as
 drug-delivery vehicles. In many of these situations, interactions between
 the droplet and enzymatic solutes are important to achieve certain
 functions. To explore this, we carried out experiments in which a model
 LLPS system, formed from DNA `nanostar' particles, interacted with a
 DNA-cleaving restriction enzyme, Sma~I, whose activity degraded the
 droplets, causing them to shrink with time. By controlling adhesion of the
 DNA droplet to a glass surface, we were able to carry out time-resolved
 imaging of this `active dissolution' process. We found that the
 scaling properties of droplet shrinking were sensitive to the proximity to
 the dissolution  (`boiling') temperature of the
 dense liquid: for systems far from the boiling point, enzymes acted only
 on the droplet surface, while systems poised near the boiling point
 permitted enzyme penetration. This was corroborated by the observation of
 enzyme-induced vacuole-formation (`bubbling') events, which can only
 occur through enzyme internalization, and which occurred only in systems
 poised near the boiling point. Overall, our results demonstrate a
 mechanism through which the phase stability of a liquid affects its
 enzymatic degradation through modulation of enzyme transport properties.
description: Dataset collection is described fully in the associated
 paper.
description: <em>The text below replicates the usage notes contained in
 the 'ReadMe' file contained within the
 archive.</em> This document describes the data
 repository associated with the paper “Enzymatic degradation of liquid
 droplets of DNA is modulated near the phase boundary”, by Omar A. Saleh,
 Byoung-jin Jeon, and Tim Liedl.<br> The repository consists of a
 single .zip archive containing 11 files. The files are:
 -This ReadMe file<br> -Six files containing trajectories of
 the radius of droplets versus time. These files are all .csv, and are the
 raw data underlying Figs. 2, S7 and S8 of the paper. The filename
 indicates the Figure and droplet type associated with each dataset. The
 data itself is stored with each row corresponding to a single droplet, and
 each column to a single time point. Time points are spaced by 1 minute,
 and begin at the 40 minute point. Values are radii, as outputted from the
 precision fitting routine, in units of camera pixels. To convert to
 microns, multiply by 1.6.<br> -Two files showing code associated
 with the high-resolution radius measurement. In fact, there are two copies
 of the same file, one formatted as a Mathematica notebook (.nb), and the
 other as a pdf. This shows how the processing of a camera image, including
 segmenting of ROIs around droplets, construction of the radial intensity
 distribution, and fitting to the distribution expected for a sphere. Refer
 to Figure S4 for details. <br> -Two files showing code associated
 with the diffusion analysis. Again, there are two copies of the same file,
 one formatted as a Mathematica notebook (.nb), and the other as a pdf.
 This shows the calculations described in Section S1, along with the making
 of the plots in Fig S1 and Fig 3.