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Updated: Jun 4, 2026

High-resolution Imaging and Analysis of Individual Astral Microtubule Dynamics in Budding Yeast
Published on: April 20, 2017
Theoretical modeling of aging effects in microtubule dynamics
Maximilian Ebbinghaus1, Ludger Santen
1Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, Université Paris-Sud 11, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Orsay, France.
Abstract:
The microtubule (MT) network, an important part of the cytoskeleton, is constantly remodeled by alternating phases of growth and shrinkage of individual filaments. Plus-end tracking proteins (+TIPs) interact with the MT and in many cases alter its dynamics. Although it is established that some +TIPs modify MT dynamics by increasing rescues, the plus-end tracking mechanism is still under debate. We present a model for MT dynamics in which a rescue factor is dynamically added to the filament during growth. As a consequence, the filament shows aging behavior that should be experimentally accessible and thus allow one to exclude some hypothesized models regarding the inclusion of rescue factors at the MT plus end. This result is not limited to +TIPs and can be extended to any kind of mechanism shifting the parameters of dynamic instability. Additionally, we show that the cell geometry has a strong influence on the quantitative results.
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