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Collision induced spatial organization of microtubules

Vladimir A. Baulin·Carlos M. Marques·Fabrice Thalmann
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Abstract

The dynamic behavior of microtubules in solution can be strongly modified by interactions with walls or other structures. We examine here a microtubule growth model where the increase in size of the plus-end is perturbed by collisions with other microtubules. We show that such a simple mechanism of constrained growth can induce ordered structures and patterns from an initially isotropic and homogeneous suspension. First, microtubules self-organize locally in randomly oriented domains that grow and compete with each other. By imposing even a weak orientation bias, external forces like gravity or cellular boundaries may bias the domain distribution eventually leading to a macroscopic sample orientation.

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Vladimir A. Baulin, Carlos M. Marques, Fabrice Thalmann. 2006-08-31. Collision induced spatial organization of microtubules. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpc.2007.04.009

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