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Microtubule dynamics in the cell interior

Numerous studies have shown that in vivo a key feature of microtubules is their dynamic instability — rapid switching between phases of elongation and shortening. For technical reasons, these studies have all examined microtubules at the cell periphery. Do microtubules in the cell interior behave the same way? Yulia Komarov and co-workers have addressed this question, using several novel experimental approaches (see p. 3527). These include analysis of the growth of fluorescently tagged microtubules through laser-photobleached centrosomes, direct observation of microtubules in centrosome-containing cytoplasts, tracking of GFP-tagged microtubule-binding proteins, and sequential subtraction analysis of regional differences in microtubule behaviour. The major finding is that, whereas at the periphery microtubule plus ends show dynamic instability, in the cell interior shortening events are infrequent and so the plus ends continue to grow. The authors propose that newly nucleated microtubules grow out rapidly from centrosomes towards the cell periphery and, once there, experience a `boundary effect' that induces catastrophe (the switch from elongation to shortening) followed by cycles of elongation and shortening characteristic of peripheral microtubules.

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Related articles in JCS:

Life cycle of MTs: persistent growth in the cell interior, asymmetric transition frequencies and effects of the cell boundary

Yulia A. Komarova, Ivan A. Vorobjev, and Gary G. Borisy
JCS 2002 115: 3527-3539. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in JCS Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?