Purification of Tubulin from Porcine Brain and its Fluorescence Dye Modification

Filamentous microtubules, polymers of the heterodimeric protein tubulins play one of the major roles in the emergent nano-biotechnological devices. To develop the feature of those devices, it is important to understand the function of microtubule in in vitro, hence, the availability of purified αβ-tubulin is required. Additionally, fluorescently labeled tubulin has become a powerful approach for extensively studying the dynamics of these components. In this chapter, the process of purifying the heterodimeric αβ-tubulin from porcine brain will be described, as well as the process of labeling of the purified tubulin with fluorescence dye.