A mechanochemical model explains interactions between cortical microtubules in plants.
Microtubules anchored to the two-dimensional cortex of plant cells collide through plus-end polymerization. Collisions can result in rapid depolymerization, directional plus-end entrainment, or crossover. These interactions are believed to give rise to cellwide self-organization of plant cortical microtubules arrays, which is required for proper cell wall growth. Although the cell-wide self-organization has been well studied, less emphasis has been placed on explaining the interactions mechanistically from the molecular scale. Here we present a model for microtubule-cortex anchoring and collision-based interactions between microtubules, based on a competition between cross-linker bonding, microtubule bending, and microtubule polymerization. Our model predicts a higher probability of entrainment at smaller collision angles and at longer unanchored lengths of plus-ends. This model addresses observed differences between collision resolutions in various cell types, including Arabidopsis cells and Tobacco cells.
Allard
Jun F
JF
Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Ambrose
J Christian
JC
Wasteneys
Geoffrey O
GO
Cytrynbaum
Eric N
EN
D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000378:metabolism*; D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D019281:Dimerization; D007700:Kinetics; D008870:Microtubules / Q000378:metabolism*; D008954:Models, Biological