Optimality in Self-Organized Molecular Sorting

We introduce a simple physical picture to explain the process of molecular sorting, whereby specific proteins are concentrated and distilled into submicrometric lipid vesicles in eukaryotic cells. To this purpose, we formulate model based on coupling spontaneous aggregation with vesicle nucleation. Its implications studied by means phenomenological theory describing diffusion molecules towards multiple sorting centers that grow due molecule absorption extracted when they reach sufficiently large size. The predictions compared numerical simulations lattice-gas realization experimental observations. efficiency distillation is found be optimal for intermediate rates, where density sorted minimal obeys scaling laws. Quantitative measures endocytic performed primary endothelial cells compatible hypothesis these conditions realized living