Ring-Shaped Assembly of Microtubules Shows Preferential Counterclockwise Motion

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• 作者：Ryuzo Kawamura ; Akira Kakugo ; Kazuhiro Shikinaka ; Yoshihito Osada ; Jian Ping Gong
• 刊名：Biomacromolecules
• 出版年：2008
• 出版时间：September 8, 2008
• 年：2008
• 卷：9
• 期：9
• 页码：2277-2282
• 全文大小：250K
• 年卷期：v.9,no.9(September 8, 2008)
• ISSN：1526-4602

文摘

In this paper, we reveal that microtubules (MTs), reconstructed from tubulin in vitro in the presence of guanosine-5′-triphosphate (GTP), have a ring or spiral shape on a motor protein-fixed surface, and these MTs show biased motion in the counterclockwise direction. By cross-linking these MTs during the sliding motion, we obtained large ring-shaped MT assemblies, 1∼12.6 μm in diameter. The ratio of the rings rotating in the counterclockwise direction to those rotating in the clockwise direction was approximately 3/1. Under optimized conditions, the ratio was as high as 14/1. Thus, we successfully obtained aggregated MTs with a large hierarchic structure that shows a preferential motion, through a dynamic process in vitro.