305 The Rockefeller University Press $30.00 J. Cell Biol. Vol. 215 No. 3 305–307 https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201610066 Microtubules are cytoskeletal structures that serve as tracks for motor-based intracellular transport and underlie the organization of biological apparatuses, including the mitotic spindle, cilia, and the phragmoplast. In vivo, microtubules are highly dynamic and interconvert b...

We investigate the microtubule polymerization dynamics with catastrophe and rescue events for three different confinement scenarios, which mimic typical cellular environments: (i) The microtubule is confined by rigid and fixed walls, (ii) it grows under constant force, and (iii) it grows against an elastic obstacle with a linearly increasing force. We use realistic catastrophe models and analyz...

Abstract Background and Aims Minimal change disease (MCD) is a podocytopathy more commonly seen in children, but it also accounts for 10%–25% of adult NS. Patients with MCD manifest abundant albuminuria, which related to the damage glomerular filtration barrier. Podocytes are major components barrier play crucial role maintaining integrity Alterations podocyte actin critically affect function. ...

Microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), guanine nucleotides, and reaction temperature have substantial effects on the interaction of taxol with purified tubulin in 0.1 M glutamate. Without MAPs, taxol induced tubulin to polymerize only if GTP was present and the reaction mixture warmed. GTP was hydrolyzed in tandem with polymerization in stoichiometric amounts, while GDP inhibited both polymeri...

Formation of microtubules is a dynamic process that involves polymerization and depolymerization of αβ-tubulin heterodimers. Drugs that enhance or inhibit tubulin polymerization can destroy this dynamic process, arresting cells in the G(2)/M phase of the cell cycle. Although drugs that target tubulin generally demonstrate cytotoxic potency in the subnanomolar range, resistance due to drug efflu...

Extensive research over the last decade has resulted in a number of highly potent tubulin polymerization inhibitors acting either as microtubule stabilizing agents (MSAs) or microtubule destabilizing agents (MDAs). These inhibitors have potent cytotoxicity against a broad spectrum of human tumor cell lines. In addition to cytotoxicity, a number of these tubulin inhibitors have exhibited abiliti...

Myelin basic protein (MBP), a highly cationic protein that maintains the structure of the myelin sheath, associates with tubulin in vivo. The in vitro assembly of tubulin by MBP was examined here using several assays. The unmodified C1 component of 18.5 kDa bovine MBP (bC1) assembled tubulin into microtubules in a dose-dependent manner via filamentous intermediates, and was able simultaneously ...

To study tubulin polymerization and microtubule sliding during spindle elongation in vitro, we developed a method of uncoupling the two processes. When isolated diatom spindles were incubated with biotinylated tubulin (biot-tb) without ATP, biot-tb was incorporated into two regions flanking the zone of microtubule overlap, but the spindles did not elongate. After biot-tb was removed, spindle el...