Limited Resources Induce Bistability in Microtubule Length Regulation

Matthias Rank; Aniruddha Mitra; Louis Reese; Stefan Diez; Erwin Frey

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.148101

Limited Resources Induce Bistability in Microtubule Length Regulation

Matthias Rank
, Aniruddha Mitra
, Louis Reese
, Stefan Diez
, Erwin Frey

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

The availability of protein is an important factor for the determination of the size of the mitotic spindle. Involved in spindle-size regulation is kinesin-8, a molecular motor and microtubule (MT) depolymerase, which is known to tightly control MT length. Here, we propose and analyze a theoretical model in which kinesin-induced MT depolymerization competes with spontaneous polymerization while supplies of both tubulin and kinesin are limited. In contrast to previous studies where resources were unconstrained, we find that, for a wide range of concentrations, MT length regulation is bistable. We test our predictions by conducting in vitro experiments and find that the bistable behavior manifests in a bimodal MT length distribution.

Original language	English
Article number	148101
Journal	Physical review letters
Volume	120
Issue number	14
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.148101
Publication status	Published - 5 Apr 2018
Externally published	Yes

Funding

E. F. and S. D. acknowledge support by the German Excellence Initiative via the programs “NanoSystems Initiative Munich” (NIM) and “Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden” (cfaed), respectively. L. R. acknowledges support by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), via the research program “Membrane-cytoplasm protein shuttling”, Project No. 13PMP03.

Funders	Funder number
German Excellence Initiative
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	13PMP03
National Institute of Metrology, China

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title = "Limited Resources Induce Bistability in Microtubule Length Regulation",

abstract = "The availability of protein is an important factor for the determination of the size of the mitotic spindle. Involved in spindle-size regulation is kinesin-8, a molecular motor and microtubule (MT) depolymerase, which is known to tightly control MT length. Here, we propose and analyze a theoretical model in which kinesin-induced MT depolymerization competes with spontaneous polymerization while supplies of both tubulin and kinesin are limited. In contrast to previous studies where resources were unconstrained, we find that, for a wide range of concentrations, MT length regulation is bistable. We test our predictions by conducting in vitro experiments and find that the bistable behavior manifests in a bimodal MT length distribution.",

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AU - Mitra, Aniruddha

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PY - 2018/4/5

Y1 - 2018/4/5

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AB - The availability of protein is an important factor for the determination of the size of the mitotic spindle. Involved in spindle-size regulation is kinesin-8, a molecular motor and microtubule (MT) depolymerase, which is known to tightly control MT length. Here, we propose and analyze a theoretical model in which kinesin-induced MT depolymerization competes with spontaneous polymerization while supplies of both tubulin and kinesin are limited. In contrast to previous studies where resources were unconstrained, we find that, for a wide range of concentrations, MT length regulation is bistable. We test our predictions by conducting in vitro experiments and find that the bistable behavior manifests in a bimodal MT length distribution.

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Limited Resources Induce Bistability in Microtubule Length Regulation

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