Abstract

Microtubule instability stems from the low energy of tubulin dimer interactions, which sets the growing polymer close to its disassembly conditions. Molecular motors use ATP hydrolysis to produce mechanical work and move on microtubules. This raises the possibility that the mechanical work produced by walking motors can break dimer interactions and trigger microtubule disassembly. We tested this hypothesis by studying the interplay between microtubules and moving molecular motors in vitro. Our results show that molecular motors can remove tubulin dimers from the lattice and rapidly destroy microtubules. We also found that dimer removal by motors was compensated for the insertion of free tubulin dimers into the microtubule lattice. This self-repair mechanism allows microtubules to survive the damage induced by molecular motors as they move along their tracks. Our study reveals the existence of coupling between the motion of molecular motors and the renewal of the microtubule lattice.

Highlights

  • To cite this version: Sarah Triclin, Daisuke Inoue, Jérémie Gaillard, Zaw Min Htet, Morgan Desantis, et al

  • Our results show that molecular motors can remove tubulin dimers from the lattice and rapidly destroy microtubules

  • We found that dimer removal by motors was compensated for the insertion of free tubulin dimers into the microtubule lattice

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Summary

Introduction

To cite this version: Sarah Triclin, Daisuke Inoue, Jérémie Gaillard, Zaw Min Htet, Morgan Desantis, et al. This raises the possibility that the mechanical work produced by walking motors can break dimer interactions and trigger microtubule disassembly We tested this hypothesis by studying the interplay between microtubules and moving molecular motors in vitro. We found that dimer removal by motors was compensated for the insertion of free tubulin dimers into the microtubule lattice This self-repair mechanism allows microtubules to survive the damage induced by molecular motors as they move along their tracks. Thermal forces are sufficient to promote the removal of tubulin dimers from the lattice 6 and motors locked into a non-moving state are capable of expanding the microtubule lattice 7,8, suggesting that the mechanical work produced by moving motors could impact the stability and dynamics of microtubule shaft

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