Perturbations in Microtubule Mechanics from Tubulin Preparation

Microtubules are essential structures for cellular organization. They support neuronal processes and cilia, they are the scaffolds for the mitotic spindle, and they are the tracks for intracellular transport that actively organizes material and information within the cell. The mechanical properties...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cellular and molecular bioengineering 2012-06, Vol.5 (2), p.227-238
Main Authors: Hawkins, Taviare L., Mirigian, Matthew, Li, Jingqiang, Yasar, M. Selcuk, Sackett, Dan L., Sept, David, Ross, Jennifer L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bioengineering
Biological and Medical Physics
Biomaterials
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology
Biophysics
Cell Biology
Cellular
Cellular biology
Cytoskeleton
Engineering
Estimates
Filaments
Mechanical properties
Molecular structure
Polymers
Proteins
Scaffolds
Variance
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Summary:Microtubules are essential structures for cellular organization. They support neuronal processes and cilia, they are the scaffolds for the mitotic spindle, and they are the tracks for intracellular transport that actively organizes material and information within the cell. The mechanical properties of microtubules have been studied for almost 30 years, yet the results from different groups are startlingly disparate, ranging over an order of magnitude. Here we present results demonstrating the effects of purification, associated-protein content, age, and fluorescent labeling on the measured persistence length using the freely fluctuating filament method. We find that small percentages (
ISSN:1865-5025
1865-5033
DOI:10.1007/s12195-012-0229-8