BPCPPDYSOE21 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 24: Poster B: Active Biological Matter, Cell Mechanics, Systems Biology, Computational Biophysics, etc.
BP 24.45: Poster
Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 16:00–18:30, BPp
Processive motors as active agents of microtubule lattice regulation — William Lecompte and •Karin John — University of Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique, 38000 Grenoble, France
Microtubules and molecular motors are ubiquitous in eukaryotic cells and are vital for many key cellular functions (cell division, organelle transport, motion). Recent experiments have shown that molecular motors modify the underlying microtubule lattice, yet a mechanistic model has remained elusive. Here we investigate theoretically how molecular motors could potentially participate in remodelling the shaft lattice. Our key idea is, that the walk of molecular motors locally destabilizes the lattice and may facilitate the exchange of tubulin dimers with the surrounding medium.
To test this assumption, we investigate a microtubule lattice model with lattice-motor interactions using kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. We propose a simple model with two key ingredients. The walk of molecular motors along the microtubule induces locally a conformational change with life time τr in the underlying lattice, which is less stable than the unperturbed lattice. Single lattice vacancies are stabilized via a steric hindrance for GTP dimers to integrate a GDP-lattice environment. As preliminary results we observed that a small flux of molecular motors which weakly destabilizes the lattice is sufficient to decrease the life-time of microtubules in the absence of free tubulin considerably.