Dresden 2011 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 30: Posters: Physics of Cells
BP 30.32: Poster
Thursday, March 17, 2011, 17:15–20:00, P3
Search strategy for a lost kinetochore based on random angular movement of the microtubule — •Nenad Pavin1,2, Iana Kalinina3, Amitabha Nandi1, Alexander Krull3, Benjamin Lindner1, and Iva M. Tolic-Norrelykke3 — 1Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany — 2Faculty of Science, Zagreb, Croatia — 3Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
In living cells, proper segregation of genetic material between the two daughter cells requires all chromosomes to be connected to the spindle microtubules. Linkers between chromosomes and MTs are kinetochores (KCs), protein complexes on the chromosome. In fission yeast, KCs are clustered at the spindle pole body (SPB), which facilitates their interaction with MTs that grow from the SPB. If the spindle is compromised, it is able to recover including capturing KCs that have been lost in the nucleoplasm. It is, however, unknown how MTs find lost KCs. We found that lost KCs can be captured by random angular movement of the microtubule. By using live cell imaging, we observed that astral MTs pivot around the SPB, in cell with and without lost KCs. By studying relationship between the MT angular diffusion and MT lengths, we found that this movement is most likely driven by thermal fluctuations. In addition, we found that KCs and astral MTs by performing random movement explore comparable fraction of space. Finally, by introducing a theoretical model, we show that the process of KC capture can be explained by the observed random movement of astral MTs and of the KC.