The tubulin fraternity: alpha to eta
1Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Washington University, Campus Box 8232, 4566 Scott Avenue, St Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. dutcher@genetics.wustl.edu
Abstract:
Microtubules perform essential and diverse functions in eukaryotic cells. They are required for spindles during mitosis and meiosis, for axonal transport, for organelle positioning, and for cilia and flagella. gamma-tubulin is necessary to initiate the assembly of alpha-beta tubulin heterodimers into microtubule polymers. Recent genetic analyses and database searches have added four new members of the tubulin superfamily, which now includes alpha-, beta-, gamma-, delta-, epsilon-, zeta-, and eta-tubulin.
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