Implications of macromolecular crowding for protein–protein association kinetics in the cytoplasm of living cells

Abstract

We present a method of prediction of in vivo association rate constants between proteins from in vitro rate constants. This model accounts for the changes in length-scale dependent viscosity of the cytoplasm of a living cell and interaction potential between proteins. We explain the unexpected results obtained for protein–protein association rate constants in the cytoplasm of HeLa cells determined by Phillip et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2012, 109, 1461.