Effects of brain microtubule-associated proteins on microtubule dynamics and the nucleating activity of centrosomes

In this paper, we report on the effect of brain microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) on the dynamic instability of microtubules as well as on the nucleation activity of purified centrosomes. Under our experimental conditions, tau and MAP2 have similar effects on microtubule nucleation and dynamic instability. Tau increases the apparent elongation rate of microtubules in proportion to its molar ratio to tubulin, and we present evidence indicating that this is due to a reduction of microtubule instability rather than to an increase of the on rate of tubulin subunits at the end of growing microtubules. Increasing the molar ratio of tau over tubulin leads also to an increase in the average number of microtubules nucleated per centrosome. This number remains constant with time. This suggests that the number of centrosome-nucleated microtubules at steady state can be determined by factors that are not necessarily irreversibly bound to centrosomes but, rather, affect the dynamic properties of microtubules.