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Preparation of Segmented Microtubules to Study Motions Driven by the Disassembling Microtubule Ends
Published on: March 16, 2014
Intracellular transport dynamics of endosomes containing DNA polyplexes along the microtubule network
Rajan P Kulkarni1, Kenneth Castelino, Arun Majumdar
1Option in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, and Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.
Abstract:
We have explored the transport of DNA polyplexes enclosed in endosomes within the cellular environment by multiple particle tracking (MPT). The polyplex-loaded endosomes demonstrate enhanced diffusion at short timescales (t<7 s) with their mean-square displacement (MSD) Deltax(t)2 scaling as t1.25. For longer time intervals they exhibit subdiffusive transport and have an MSD scaling as t0.7. This crossover from an enhanced diffusion to a subdiffusive regime can be explained by considering the action of motor proteins that actively transport these endosomes along the cellular microtubule network and the thermal bending modes of the microtubule network itself.
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