When the weather outside is frightful, let it condensate: How the phase separation of an RNA binding protein CP29A helps plants acclimatize to cold

Biology textbooks readily inform us about the importance of membrane-bound organelles like mitochondria, Golgi apparatus, and the vacuole, but what about "organelles" that lack membranes?The liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of proteins and RNA into "membrane-less organelles," also known as biomolecular condensates, is dynamic and reversible, depending on factors such as salt concentration, temperature, and protein levels.While much of the seminal work on biomolecular condensates has been conducted in animal systems, plant biologists too are starting to realize that plant cellular components form condensates (Field et al. 2023, and see other articles in The Plant Cell July 2023 focus issue on biomolecular condensates, introduced by Gutierrez-Beltran et al. 2023).Much like their mammalian counterparts, plant proteins rely on special domains like Intrinsically Disordered Regions (IDRs) to form condensates in response to environmental stresses and developmental cues (Field et al. 2023).Understanding the molecular mechanisms of the assembly, interaction with cellular components, and the subsequent dissociation of highly dynamic condensates will help to clarify how rapid changes occur in the cell.In recent years, the dynamic assembly of biomolecular condensates in response to environmental stressors has been reported in several publications (Field et al. 2023).When it comes to temperature stress, most temperatureinduced condensates have been observed in the nucleus (Jung et al. 2020, Zhang et al. 2023).Now, Legen and authors (2024) provide evidence of cold-induce LLPS in the chloroplast.