Nematic growth of microtubules that changed into giant spiral structure through partial depolymerization and subsequent dynamic ordering

作者：Shigehara Kiyotaka; Kudoh Hiroki; Mori Saori; Tamura Yoshiki; Kakugo Akira; Kawamura Ryuzo; Furukawa Hidemitsu; Gong Jian Ping; Masunaga Hiroyasu; Masui Tomomi; Koizumi Satoshi; Shikinaka Kazuhiro^*

来源：Soft Matter, 2012, 8(45): 11544-11551.

DOI：10.1039/c2sm26675j

In a long capillary cell with temperature gradient, tubulin dimers with alpha and beta subunits polymerized according to the preferential polarity, i.e., the anisotropic spiral addition of the dimers to the beta-terminated %26quot;plus end%26quot; dominated the formation of microtubules. As the result, the helical hollow cylinders generated the oriented nematic liquid crystalline structure with centimeter-length. In the next stage, where microtubules were under the partial polymerization/depolymerization equilibrium due to the concentration fluctuation, the dynamic rearrangement of microtubules such as their shortening (depolymerization) and subsequent tilting of orientation axis caused the structural change from the oriented nematic liquid crystalline structure to some giant spiral structure which was subjected by the ordered dipole and the helical chirality of microtubules.

• 出版日期2012