Microtubule self-organization is gravity-dependent

Microtubule self-organization is gravity-dependent

Laboratoire Résonance Magnétique en Biologie Métabolique, Département de Biologie Moléculaire et Structurale, Direction des Sciences du Vivant, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique Grenoble, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

Edited by J. Richard McIntosh, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, and approved May 5, 2000 (received for review January 24, 2000)

Abstract

Although weightlessness is known to affect living cells, the manner by which this occurs is unknown. Some reaction-diffusion processes have been theoretically predicted as being gravity-dependent. Microtubules, a major constituent of the cellular cytoskeleton, self-organize in vitro by way of reaction-diffusion processes. To investigate how self-organization depends on gravity, microtubules were assembled under low gravity conditions produced during space flight. Contrary to the samples formed on an in-flight 1 × g centrifuge, the samples prepared in microgravity showed almost no self-organization and were locally disordered.

Footnotes

↵ * To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: jtabony{at}cea.fr.
This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
Article published online before print: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 10.1073/pnas.140029597.
Article and publication date are at www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.140029597
Abbreviation:

DAPI,

4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole