Membrane prewetting by condensates promotes tight-junction belt formation

Prewetting couples membrane and protein phase transitions to greatly enhance coexistence in models and cells

Both membranes and biopolymers can individually separate into coexisting liquid phases. Here we explore biopolymer prewetting at membranes, a phase transition that emerges when these two thermodynamic systems are coupled. In reconstitution, we couple short poly-L-Lysine and poly-L-Glutamic Acid polyelectrolytes to membranes of saturated lipids, unsaturated lipids, and cholesterol, and detect coexisting prewet and dry surface phases well outside of the region of coexistence for each individual system. Notability, polyelectrolyte prewetting is highly sensitive to membrane lipid composition, occurring at 10 fold lower polymer concentration in a membrane close to its phase transition compared to one without a phase transition. In cells, protein prewetting is achieved using an optogenetic tool that enables titration of condensing proteins and tethering to the plasma membrane inner leaflet. Here we show that protein prewetting occurs for conditions well outside those where proteins condense in the cytoplasm, and that the stability of prewet domains is sensitive to perturbations of plasma membrane composition and structure. Our work presents an example of how thermodynamic phase transitions can impact cellular structure outside their individual coexistence regions, suggesting new possible roles for phase-separation-prone systems in cell biology.