scholarly journals Taxol-induced bundling of brain-derived microtubules.

1984 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 940-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
P F Turner ◽  
R L Margolis

Taxol has two obvious effects in cells. It stabilizes microtubules and it induces microtubule bundling. We have duplicated the microtubule-bundling effect of taxol in vitro and report preliminary characterization of this bundling using electron microscopy, sedimentation, and electrophoretic analyses. Taxol-bundled microtubules from rat brain crude extracts were seen as massive bundles by electron microscopy. Bundled microtubules sedimented through sucrose five times faster than control microtubules. Electrophoretic analysis of control and taxol-bundled microtubules pelleted through sucrose revealed no striking differences between the two samples except for a protein doublet of approximately 100,000 daltons. Taxol-induced microtubule bundling was not produced by using pure tubulin or recycled microtubule protein; this suggested that taxol-induced microtubule bundling was mediated by a factor present in rat brain crude extracts. Taxol cross-linked rat brain crude extract microtubules were entirely labile to ATP in the millimolar range. This ATP-dependent relaxation was also demonstrated in a more purified system, using taxol-bundled microtubules pelleted through sucrose and gently resuspended. Although the bundling factor did not recycle with microtubule protein, it was apparently retained on isolated taxol-stabilized microtubules. The bundling factor was salt extracted from taxol-stabilized microtubules and its retained activity was demonstrated in an add-back experiment with assembled phosphocellulose-purified tubulin.

Plant Science ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshihiro Narusaka ◽  
Akio Murakami ◽  
Mari Saeki ◽  
Hirokazu Kobayashi ◽  
Kimiyuki Satoh

1985 ◽  
Vol 227 (2) ◽  
pp. 439-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
P M Bayley ◽  
F M M Butler ◽  
D C Clark ◽  
E J Manser ◽  
S R Martin

The kinetics of assembly were studied for bovine and pig microtubule protein in vitro over a range of conditions of pH, temperature, nucleotide and protein concentration. The kinetics are in general biphasic with two major processes of similar amplitude but separated in rate by one order of magnitude. Rates and amplitudes are complex functions of solution conditions. The rates of the fast phase and the slow phase attain limiting values as a function of increasing protein concentration, and are more stringently limited at pH 6.5 than pH 6.95. Such behaviour indicates that mechanisms other than the condensation polymerization of tubulin dimer become rate-limiting at higher protein concentration. The constancy of the wavelength-dependence of light-scattering and ultrastructural criteria indicate that microtubules of normal morphology are formed in both phases of the assembly process. Electrophoretic analysis of assembling microtubule protein shows that MAP- (microtubule-associated-protein-)rich microtubules are formed during the fast phase. The rate of dissociation of oligomeric species on dilution of microtubule protein closely parallels the fast-phase rate in magnitude and temperature-dependence. We propose that the rate of this process constitutes an upper limit to the rate of the fast phase of assembly. The kinetics of redistribution of MAPs from MAP-rich microtubules may be a factor limiting the slow-phase rate. A working model is derived for the self-assembly of microtubule protein incorporating the dissociation and redistribution mechanisms that impose upper limits to the rates of assembly attainable by bimolecular addition reactions. Key roles are assigned to MAP-containing fragments in both phases of microtubule elongation. Variations in kinetic behaviour with solution conditions are inferred to derive from the nature and properties of fragments formed from oligomeric species after the rapid temperature jump. The model accounts for the limiting rate behaviour and indicates experimental criteria to be applied in evaluating the relative contributions of alternative pathways.


1980 ◽  
Vol 189 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Roobol ◽  
C I Pogson ◽  
K Gull

Cell extracts of myxamoebae of Physarum polycephalum have been prepared in such a way that they do not inhibit assembly of brain microtubule protein in vitro even at high extract-protein concentration. Co-polymers of these extracts and brain tubulin have been purified to constant stoichiometry and amoebal components identified by radiolabelling. Amoebal tubulin has been identified as having an alpha-subunit, mol.wt. 54 000, which co-migrates with brain alpha-tubulin and a beta-subunit, mol.wt. 50 000, which co-migrates with Tetrahymena ciliary beta-tubulin. Non-tubulin amoebal proteins that co-purify with tubulin during co-polymer formation have been shown to be essential for microtubule formation in the absence of glycerol and appear to be rather more effective than brain microtubule-associated proteins in stimulating assembly. The mitotic inhibitor griseofulvin (7-chloro-2′,4,6-trimethoxy-6′-methylspiro[benzofuran-2(3H),1′-cyclohex-2′-ene] −3,4′-dione), which binds to brain microtubule-associated proteins and inhibits brain microtubule assembly in vitro, affected co-polymer microtubule protein in a similar way, but to a slightly greater extent.


1967 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert S. Rosenkranz

A preliminary characterization of the non-nucleotidic component present in the DNA of Echinarachnius parma was undertaken. This material has an extremely high sedimentation coefficient (907 S). It contains no deoxyribose and presumably no ribose. After acid hydrolysis it was strongly ninhydrin-positive and also gave positive tests for reducing sugars as well as a slightly positive test for amino sugars. Upon electrophoretic analysis of an acid hydrolysate, three ninhydrinpositive spots were detected. One of these migrated to the negative electrode with a mobility identical with that of galactosamine, the other migrated to the positive electrode, and the third was neutral at pH 6.3. The spot with a mobility identical with that of galactosamine also gave a positive test for amino sugar. The material was not attacked by α-amylase. However, digestion with a crude trypsin preparation resulted in loss of the banding property in gradients of cesium chloride. Exposure to purified trypsin did not completely digest it, but caused an increase in buoyant density.


Neuroscience ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Kohzuki ◽  
S.Y. Chai ◽  
G. Paxinos ◽  
A. Karavas ◽  
D.J. Casley ◽  
...  

2000 ◽  
Vol 182 (10) ◽  
pp. 2787-2792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsuko Gyohda ◽  
Teruya Komano

ABSTRACT The shufflon, a multiple DNA inversion system in plasmid R64, consists of four invertible DNA segments which are separated and flanked by seven 19-bp repeat sequences. The product of a site-specific recombinase gene, rci, promotes site-specific recombination between any two of the inverted 19-bp repeat sequences of the shufflon. To analyze the molecular mechanism of this recombination reaction, Rci protein was overproduced and purified. The purified Rci protein promoted the in vitro recombination reaction between the inverted 19-bp repeats of supercoiled DNA of a plasmid carrying segment A of the R64 shufflon. The recombination reaction was enhanced by the bacterial host factor HU. Gel electrophoretic analysis indicated that the Rci protein specifically binds to the DNA segments carrying the 19-bp sequences. The binding affinity of the Rci protein to the four shufflon segments as well as four synthetic 19-bp sequences differed greatly: among the four 19-bp repeat sequences, the repeat-a and -d sequences displayed higher affinity to Rci protein. These results suggest that the differences in the affinity of Rci protein for the 19-bp repeat sequences determine the inversion frequencies of the four segments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yann Benureau ◽  
Eliana Moreira Tavares ◽  
Ali-Akbar Muhammad ◽  
Sonia Baconnais ◽  
Eric Le Cam ◽  
...  

Abstract DNA intermediate structures are formed in all major pathways of DNA metabolism. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a tool of choice to study their choreography and has led to major advances in the understanding of these mechanisms, particularly those of homologous recombination (HR) and replication. In this article, we describe specific TEM procedures dedicated to the structural characterization of DNA intermediates formed during these processes. These particular DNA species contain single-stranded DNA regions and/or branched structures, which require controlling both the DNA molecules spreading and their staining for subsequent visualization using dark-field imaging mode. Combining BAC (benzyl dimethyl alkyl ammonium chloride) film hyperphase with positive staining and dark-field TEM allows characterizing synthetic DNA substrates, joint molecules formed during not only in vitro assays mimicking HR, but also in vivo DNA intermediates.


Synapse ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 61 (8) ◽  
pp. 577-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Biegon ◽  
Andrew Gibbs ◽  
Maritza Alvarado ◽  
Michele Ono ◽  
Scott Taylor

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