Kinesins lead aging microtubules to catastrophe.

Akhmanova, Anna; Dogterom, Marileen · Cell · 2011

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The ability of growing microtubules to undergo catastrophes--abrupt switches from growth to shortening--is one of the key aspects of microtubule dynamics important for shaping cellular microtubule arrays. Gardner et al. show that catastrophes occur at a microtubule age-dependent rate and that depolymerizing kinesins can affect this process in fundamentally different ways.