Microtubules soften due to cross-sectional flattening
- Harvard University, United States
- Brandeis University, United States
- University of California, Santa Barbara, United States
Abstract
We use optical trapping to continuously bend an isolated microtubule while simultaneously measuring the applied force and the resulting filament strain, thus allowing us to determine its elastic properties over a wide range of applied strains. We find that, while in the low-strain regime, microtubules may be quantitatively described in terms of the classical Euler-Bernoulli elastic filament, above a critical strain they deviate from this simple elastic model, showing a softening response with increasing deformations. A three-dimensional thin-shell model, in which the increased mechanical compliance is caused by flattening and eventual buckling of the filament cross-section, captures this softening effect in the high strain regime and yields quantitative values of the effective mechanical properties of microtubules. Our results demonstrate that properties of microtubules are highly dependent on the magnitude of the applied strain and offer a new interpretation for the large variety in microtubule mechanical data measured by different methods.
Data availability
Source data has been provided for Figure 6 along with source code files. Source code files have been provided for Figure 2 along with instructions for generating the data.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0010432TDD)
- Feodor Hilitsk
- Zvonimir Dogic
National Science Foundation (NSF-MCB-1329623)
- Zvonimir Dogic
National Science Foundation (NSF- -CMMI-1068566)
- Zvonimir Dogic
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2018, Memet et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Microtubules soften due to cross-sectional flattening
eLife 7:e34695.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34695
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