Liquid droplet coarsening in an active biomimetic fluid

Membraneless organelles that are found in the cell cytoplasm perform many necessary functions for the cell's survival. These organelles often display liquid-like dynamics and can grow and coarsen over time. It is not yet clear how the out of equilibrium nature of the cell cytoplasm contributes to organelle coarsening. In this work, we immerse phase separating DNA particles in microtubule-based active fluids to investigate the impact of cytoplasmic flows on droplet coarsening dynamics. We will quantify the motion of objects in an actively mixed fluid, and examine average size scaling and size distributions of droplets advected by active chaotic flows. We will show that actively mixed droplets exhibit a wider size distribution while maintaining a diffusive-like average size scaling. These results shine new light on how the physics of the cytoplasm is distinct from the physics of conventional fluid at thermodynamic equilibrium.