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Microtubule Assembly in Growing Dendrites
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Microtubule Assembly in Growing Dendrites

Jun Wang, Wenqian Yu, Peter W Baas and Mark M Black
The Journal of neuroscience, v 16(19), pp 6065-6078
01 Oct 1996
PMID: 8815889
url
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.16-19-06065.1996View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

biotin–tubulin dendrites microtubule turnover microinjection microtubules cultured sympathetic neurons
Dendritic microtubules (MTs) are nonuniform with respect to polarity orientation, with roughly equal proportions having a plus-end-distal or minus-end-distal orientation. In the present studies, we have microinjected biotin-labeled tubulin (Bt–tub) into cultured sympathetic neurons extending dendrites to explore the contribution of MT assembly to the elaboration and maintenance of the dendritic MT array. Within minutes of injecting Bt–tub, an enormous number of MTs were seen emanating from a point source in the cell body. Over time, this pattern changed such that by 120 min after injection, biotinylated MTs no longer emanated from a discrete site, but were distributed over a broad region that extended from the cell body into the dendrites. The observation that biotinylated MTs emanate from a point source in the soma at relatively short times after injection, but not at longer times, suggests that they undergo a redistribution subsequent to their initial nucleation rather than a simple radial expansion from the somal nucleation site. Bt–tub assembly also occurred in dendrites but, unlike in the cell body, assembly was dispersed throughout the dendrite rather than emanating from a discrete site. Immunoelectron microscopic analyses revealed that assembly in dendrites reflected the addition of Bt–tub onto the ends of both plus-end-distal and minus-end-distal MTs that existed in the cell at the time of injection. The time course of Bt–tub appearance in dendritic MTs suggested an average half-life of ∼76 min for these MTs. We discuss these observations in the context of a model for generating the MT array of dendrites that combines both MT transport and MT assembly.

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Neurosciences
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