The Centre of New Technologies invites to a seminar by
Dr. Łukasz Szatkowski,
University of Cincinnati
“ Mechanical stability of microtubule lattices – molecular dynamic indentation studies”
Date: January 14th, 2019 at 12 p.m.
Venue: Centre of New Technologies, Banacha 2C,
Lecture Hall 0142 (Ground floor)
Abstract:
Microtubules (MTs) are made of tubulin heterodimers joined longitudinally into protofilaments (PFs). Typically, in cells 13 PFs associate laterally to form the hollow cylinder of an MT called the B-lattice. The MT filament is not a perfect cylinder as it contains one A-lattice lateral interface called the seam. During cellular processes such as mitosis, MT breakage is induced by microtubule-severing enzymes. Due to the high complexity of MTs, experimental techniques are not able to differentiate which of the A/B lattices is the “sweet spot” for the binding of these enzymes.
We probed the mechanical stability of the various MT lattice interfaces using coarse-grained indenting molecular dynamics simulations. For both lattices we found that the computationally predicted breaking forces, bending angles distributions, and MTs length factors are comparable with experimental data obtained from in vitro severing assays and AFM experiments. Thus, the differences in the behavior of the lattice interfaces revealed by our simulations can address the binding site controversy.
