2024-11-26 09:30:00
“We’ve put our finger on something huge”enthuses Manuel théry, researcher at the Commission for Atomic Energy and Option Energy, at the Higher School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry of the city of Paris, met in a bar.He wears a T-shirt that reveals the central object of his discovery: a microtubule. These tubular protein filaments, 25 nanometers in diameter, are essential parts of cells. on these “tracks,” other molecules transport proteins from one point in the cell to another.
Their network organization also forms the skeleton of cells, to allow them to change shape, advance and even divide in two. In short, a bond as fundamental as other compounds, such as the nucleus containing DNA, mitochondria or other ribosomes… but which remains largely misunderstood. How does this network grow, capable of repairing itself, growing or shrinking, in an orderly way?
Elongated sugar sachet
Microtubules stack on top of each other, and its long stacks close in on themselves. The space is divided into purple and cyan blue regions, separated by walls of microtubules. The mosaic, in certain places, evokes Christmas wreaths, bristling with microtubules.
The sight is all the more stunning for a biologist because he recognizes the structures adopted by microtubules in cells. Except that, in the study, we are not dealing with actual cells, but with model systems with a minimum of ingredients that make up four families. Obviously microtubules. Then two types of “motors”, kinesins (a protein), which run on these tubes in one direction (“plus” motor) or the other (“minus” motor). And, last ingredient, a lipid membrane over which the motors wander randomly when they are not on a microtubule.
#microtubules #selforganize #cells
