microtubule tagged posts

Microtubules in a cardiomyocyte at rest (top) and when compressed. Credit: The lab of Ben Prosser, Ph.D., Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Using new high-resolution microscopy, a team from the Perelman School of Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania found microtubules (MT) interact with the heart’s contractile machinery to provide mechanical resistance for the beating of the heart. Their findings could have implications for better understanding how microtubules affect the mechanics of the beating heart, and what happens when this goes awry.

Alterations in this microtubule network have been suggested to contribute to heart disease, but just how microtubules behave in the beating heart is poorly understood...

DIAPH3 silencing reduces the population of stable MT and alters MT topology. NB. Inhibition of MT stability arising from DIAPH3 downregulation enhances susceptibility to MT poisons, and that the DIAPH3 network potentially reports taxane sensitivity in human

The biomarker – diaphanous-related formin-3 or DIAPH3 – participates in a protein interaction that makes cells rigid. The study found that when this biomarker is lost or lowered, cells become “deformable,” squeezing through tissue spaces, causing disease growth or progression. This phenomenon is known as an amoeboid phenotype.

ie DIAPH3 interacted with microtubules (MT), and its loss altered several parameters of MT dynamics as well as decreased polarized force generation, contractility, and response to substrate stiffness...