1. transcript
  2. Show Me the Microtubules

Show Me the Microtubules

By apalazzo on March 8, 2007.

There's a new paper in Dev Cell with a nice reconstruction of a fission yeast cell (S. pombe) with all its microtubules.

From the abstract:

Here, we describe a large-scale, electron tomography investigation of S. pombe, including a 3D reconstruction of a complete eukaryotic cell volume at sufficient resolution to show both how many microtubules (MTs) there are in a bundle and their detailed architecture. Most cytoplasmic MTs are open at one end and capped at the other, providing evidence about their polarity. Electron-dense bridges between the MTs themselves and between MTs and the nuclear envelope were frequently observed. Finally, we have investigated structure/function relationships between MTs and both mitochondria and vesicles.

Microtubules are the green lines, the microtubule plus end caps are the round objects at the end of each microtubule, the nucleus is the big brown blob.

i-dd9f035d5f3165641362b324f0accb4c-fissionyeast.jpg

[HT: Dan]

Ref:
Hoog JL, Schwartz C, Noon AT, O'toole ET, Mastronarde DN, McIntosh JR, Antony C.
Organization of interphase microtubules in fission yeast analyzed by electron tomography.
Dev Cell. 2007 Mar;12(3):349-61

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Pure Biology

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