Transcription-templated assembly of the nucleolus in the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo

Abstract

The nucleolus is a multicomponent structure made of RNA and proteins that serves as the site of ribosome biogenesis within the nucleus. It has been extensively studied as a prototype of a biomolecular condensate whose assembly is driven by phase separation. While the steady-state size of the nucleolus is quantitatively accounted for by the thermodynamics of phase separation, we show that experimental measurements of the assembly dynamics are inconsistent with a simple model of a phase-separating system relaxing to its equilibrium state. Instead, we show that the dynamics are well described by a model in which the transcription of ribosomal RNA actively drives nucleolar assembly. We find that our model of active transcription-templated assembly quantitatively accounts for the rapid kinetics observed in early embryos at different developmental stages, and for different RNA interference (RNAi) perturbations of embryo size. Our model predicts a scaling of the time to assembly with the volume of the nucleus to the one-third power, which is confirmed by experimental data. Our study highlights the role of active processes such as transcription in controlling the placement and timing of assembly of membraneless organelles.