Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T02:30:08.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Buckling of Microtubules in Living Cells Modulated by Surrounding Cytoplasm and Filament Network

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Teng Li
Teng Li*
Affiliation:
LiT@umd.edu, University of Maryland, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2181 Glenn L. Martin Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, United States
Get access

Abstract

The mechanics of living cells is largely determined by their cytoskeleton, a dynamic network of microtubules and protein filaments in the cytoplasm. Microtubules are the most rigid cytoskeletal filaments and bear compressive forces in cells. Microtubules in vivo often severely buckle into short wavelengths. By contrast, isolated microtubules in vitro buckle into single long-wavelength arcs. To explain this discrepancy, we describe a mechanics model of microtubule buckling in living cells. The model shows that, while the buckling wavelength is set by the interplay between the microtubules and the elastic surrounding filament network, the buckling growth rate is set by the viscous cytoplasm. The quantitative results from the model shed light on developing new and robust methods to measure various in vivo mechanical properties of subcellular structures, e.g., bending rigidity of microtubules, elastic modulus of filament network, and viscosity of cytoplasm. The model can also be readily generalized to study the deformation of hard engineering materials at soft bio-interfaces.

Keywords

biologicalbiomaterialnanostructure
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1063: Symposium OO – Solids at the Biological Interface , 2007 , 1063-OO03-02
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1. Amos, L. A. and Amos, W. B., Molecules of the Cytoskeleton (Macmillan, London, 1991).Google Scholar
2. Howard, J., Mechanics of motor proteins and the cytoskeleton (Sinauer Associates, Inc., Sunderland, 2001).Google Scholar
3. Pampaloni, F., Lattanzi, G., Jonas, A., Surrey, T., Frey, E., Florin, E.L., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 10248, 2006.Google Scholar
4. Ingber, D.E., Ann. Rev. Physiol., 59, 575, 1997.Google Scholar
5. Wang, N., Butler, J.P. and Ingber, D.E., Science, 260, 1124, 1993.Google Scholar
6. Heidemann, S.R., Kaech, S., Buxbaum, R.E. and Matus, A., J. Cell Biol. 145, 109, 1999.Google Scholar
7. Brangwynne, C.P., MacKintosh, F.C., Kumar, S., Geisse, N.A., Talbot, J., Mahadevan, L., Parker, K.K. Ingber, D.E., and Weitz, D.A., J. Cell Biol. 173, 733, 2006.Google Scholar
8. Gittes, F., Meyhofer, E., Baek, S., and Howard, J., Biophys. J. 70, 418, 1996.Google Scholar
9. Landau, L.D. and Lifshitz, E.M., Theory of Elasticity. (Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1986).Google Scholar
10. Huang, R., J. Mech. Phys. Solids 53, 63, 2005.Google Scholar
11. Huang, R. and Suo, Z., J. Appl. Phys. 91, 1135, 2002.Google Scholar