Measuring Microtubule Polarity in Spindles with Second-Harmonic Generation |
| |
Authors: | Che-Hang Yu,Noah Langowitz,Hai-Yin Wu,Reza Farhadifar,Jan Brugues,Tae  Yeon Yoo,Daniel Needleman |
| |
Affiliation: | † School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;‡ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;§ Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;¶ FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;‖ Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany |
| |
Abstract: | The spatial organization of microtubule polarity, and the interplay between microtubule polarity and protein localization, is thought to be crucial for spindle assembly, anaphase, and cytokinesis, but these phenomena remain poorly understood, in part due to the difficulty of measuring microtubule polarity in spindles. We develop and implement a method to nonperturbatively and quantitatively measure microtubule polarity throughout spindles using a combination of second-harmonic generation and two-photon fluorescence. We validate this method using computer simulations and by comparison to structural data on spindles obtained from electron tomography and laser ablation. This method should provide a powerful tool for studying spindle organization and function, and may be applicable for investigating microtubule polarity in other systems. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|