• DOI:10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.76.4078
• Corpus ID: 38030534

Buckling microtubules in vesicles.

@article{Elbaum1996BucklingMI,
  title={Buckling microtubules in vesicles.},
  author={Elbaum and D KuchnirFygenson and Libchaber},
  journal={Physical review letters},
  year={1996},
  volume={76 21},
  pages={
          4078-4081
        }
}

• Elbaum, Kuchnir Fygenson D, Libchaber
• Published 20 May 1996
• Biology
• Physical review letters

Microtubules are ordered polymers of the protein tubulin that are part of the flexible, plastic, and even self-effacing skeleton of eukaryotic cells [1,2]. They are hollow cylinders, 25 nm in diameter and tens of microns long [3]. Microtubules have large bending rigidity, with a persistence length of the order of millimeters [4]. The elastic properties of microtubules and their interaction with the cell membrane are essential in defining cell morphology. This Letter is concerned with microtubules within artificial phospholipid vesicles, their shapes, and the shape transformations induced by membrane tension. A single microtubule deforms a vesicle into an oval. Under tension, the microtubule buckles and the vesicle recovers a spherical shape. This allows a measurement of the microtubule bending rigidity. A large number of microtubules organize inside a vesicle into a linear bundle which protrudes without piercing the membrane. The vesicle contains the bundle by extending a pair of narrow tubes about the microtubule extremities while maintaining