Limited Resources Induce Bistability in Microtubule Length Regulation

Rank, Matthias; Mitra, Aniruddha; Reese, Louis; Diez, Stefan und Frey, Erwin (2018): Limited Resources Induce Bistability in Microtubule Length Regulation. In: Physical Review Letters, Bd. 120, Nr. 14, 148101

Abstract

The availability of protein is an important factor for the determination of the size of the mitotic spindle. Involved in spindle-size regulation is kinesin-8, a molecular motor and microtubule (MT) depolymerase, which is known to tightly control MT length. Here, we propose and analyze a theoretical model in which kinesin-induced MT depolymerization competes with spontaneous polymerization while supplies of both tubulin and kinesin are limited. In contrast to previous studies where resources were unconstrained, we find that, for a wide range of concentrations, MT length regulation is bistable. We test our predictions by conducting in vitro experiments and find that the bistable behavior manifests in a bimodal MT length distribution.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Sprache: Englisch