Tannic acid-stained microtubules with 12, 13, and 15 protofilaments

Tannic acid-stained microtubules with 12, 13, and 15 protofilaments

Subunit structure in the walls of sectioned microtubules was first noted by Ledbetter and Porter (6), who clearly showed that certain microtubules of plant meristematic cells have 13 wall protofilaments when seen in cross section. Earlier, protofilaments of microtubular elements had been described in negatively stained material, although exact counts of their number were difficult to obtain. In...

Microtubules: Evidence for 13 Protofilaments

When microtubules are fixed in glutaraldehyde in the presence of tannic acid and thin sections cut, the subunit structure of the microtubule is readily observed without the need of image reinforcement. Seven types of microtubules were analyzed: those in the heliozoan axoneme, the mitotic apparatus, the contractile axostyle, repolymerized microtubules derived from the chick brain, the central pa...

Wall substructure of microtubules polymerized in vitro from tubulin of crayfish nerve cord and fixed with tannic acid.

Microtubules of axons of crayfish nerve cord normally have 12 wall protofilaments and microtubules of surrounding glial cells have 13 protofilaments. Tubulin was isolated from such nerve cords and polymerized in vitro; tannic acid staining of sedimented microtubules showed that microtubules with 12 and 13 wall protofilaments were present, suggesting that the ability to form a microtubule with a...

A post-assembly structural modification to the lumen of flagellar microtubule doublets

The most common form of the motile eukaryotic flagellum contains a 9 + 2 axoneme, consisting of nine outer doublet microtubules and a central pair of single microtubules. The flagellum of the African trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei fits this pattern, but in addition possesses a paraflagellar rod (PFR) connected to the axoneme at doublets 4 through 7. The PFR acts as a structural platform for met...

Tannic acid Datasheet