title: Investigating tubulin posttranslational modifications with specific antibodies.
abstract: Microtubules play highly diverse and essential roles in every eukaryotic cell. While built from conserved dimers of α- and β-tubulin, microtubules can be diversified by posttranslational modifications in order to fulfill specific functions in cells. The tubulin posttranslational modifications: acetylation, detyrosination, polyglutamylation, and polyglycylation play important roles in microtubule functions; however, only little functional and mechanistic insight has been gained so far. The modification state of microtubules can be visualized with specific antibodies. A drawback is that detailed information about the specificities and limitations of these antibodies are not easily accessible in the literature. We provide here a comprehensive description of the currently available set of antibodies specific to tubulin modifications. Focusing on glutamylation antibodies, we discuss specific protocols that allow using these antibodies to gain semi-quantitative information on the levels and distribution of tubulin modifications in immunocytochemistry and immunoblot.
authors: Institut Curie, CNRS UMR3306, INSERM U1005, Orsay, France.
authors: Maria M
authors: MM
authors: Magiera
authors: Carsten
authors: C
authors: Janke
mesh_terms: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000276:immunology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting / Q000379:methods*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry / Q000379:methods; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins / Q000276:immunology; D008870:Microtubules / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism*; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational / Q000235:genetics*; D013194:Staining and Labeling / Q000379:methods; D014404:Tubulin / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins; D014404:Tubulin
keywords: Immunolabeling; Tubulin acetylation; Tubulin detyrosination; Tubulin modification-specific antibody; Tubulin polyglutamylation; Tubulin polyglycylation; Tubulin posttranslational modifications; Δ2-Tubulin