Collision induced spatial organization of microtubules

Vladimir Baulin (1) , Carlos Marques (1) , Fabrice Thalmann (1)

1 ICS - Institut Charles Sadron

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. We find that microtubules self-organize locally in randomly oriented domains that grow and compete with each other. Aweak orientation bias, similar to the one induced by gravity or cellular boundaries is enough to influence the domain growth direction, eventually leading to a macroscopic sample orientation.

Mots clés: Microtubules; Cytoskeleton; Ordering; Self-assembly; Pattern formation; Gravity

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Vladimir Baulin, Carlos Marques, Fabrice Thalmann. Collision induced spatial organization of microtubules. Biophys. Chemist., 2007, 128, pp.231. ⟨10.1016/j.bpc.2007.04.009⟩. ⟨hal-00155027⟩