Analysis of the migration behaviour of single microtubules in electric fields
Abstract
By video contrast microscopy, individual microtubules formed from pure tubulin in the presence of taxol were studied in constant electric fields. At nearly physiological conditions, i.e., in a buffer at pH 6.8 and 120 mM ionic strength, suspended microtubules moved towards the anode with an electrophoretic mobility of approximately 2.6 x 10(-4) cm(2)/V s, corresponding to an unbalanced negative charge of 0.19 electron charges per tubulin dimer. Strikingly, this value is lower by a factor of at least 50 than that calculated from crystallographic data for the non-assembled tubulin dimer. Moreover, the taxol-stabilized microtubules had an isoelectric point of about pH 4.2 which is significantly lower than that known for the tubulin monomers. This indicates that microtubule formation is accompanied by substantial changes of charge distribution within the tubulin subunits. Constant electric fields were shown to affect also the orientation of microtubules gliding across a kinesin-coated surface at pH 6.8.
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Sahu et al. measured conductivity along the periphery of MTs, where the DC intrinsic conductivities of MTs, from a 200 nm gap, were found to be approximately 10−1 to 102 S/m.
“Sahu et al. [75,76] measured conductivity along the periphery of MTs, where the DC intrinsic conductivities of MTs, from a 200 nm gap, were found to be approximately 10−1 to 102 S/m.”
From An Overview of Sub-Cellular Mechanisms Involved in the Action of TTFields (2016) · cites this paper as [75]
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References 31 · Cited by 147
- Authors
- Stracke, R., Böhm, K. J., Wollweber, L., Tuszynski, J. A., & Unger, E.
- Corresponding author
- Böhm, K.J
- ORCID
- Böhm, K.J
- Venue
- Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2002-04
- Volume
- 293
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 602-609
- ISSN
- 0006-291X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2007094590
- Cited by
- 147
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 3.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Arizona
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › Microtubule and mitosis dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Physical and Theoretical Chemistry › Electrostatics and Colloid Interactions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Treatment and Pharmacology
- Keywords
- microtubules, electrophoretic mobility, electric field, tubulin, isoelectric point, charge distribution, microtubule orientation, kinesin, microtubule gliding
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Brain, Electric Stimulation, Microtubules, Models, Molecular, Movement, Protein Conformation, Swine, Tubulin, Paclitaxel, Microscopy, Video
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Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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