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University of Massachusetts Amherst

Masters Theses

Theses/Dissertations

Microtubule

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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Characterizing The Inhibition Of Katanin Using Tubulin Carboxy-Terminal Tail Constructs, Corey E. Reed Nov 2016

Characterizing The Inhibition Of Katanin Using Tubulin Carboxy-Terminal Tail Constructs, Corey E. Reed

Masters Theses

Understanding how the cellular cytoskeleton is maintained and regulated is important to elucidate the functions of many structures such as the mitotic spindle, cilia and flagella. Katanin p60, microtubule-severing enzymes from the ATPase associated with cellular activities (AAA+) family, has previously been shown in our lab to be inhibited by free tubulin as well as α- and β-tubulin carboxy-terminal tail (CTT) constructs. Here we investigate the inhibition ability of several different tubulin CTT sequences. We quantify the effect of the addition of these constructs on the severing and binding activity of katanin. We find that some constructs inhibit katanin better …


Dynamics Of Microtubule Networks With Antiparallel Crosslinkers, Kasimira T. Stanhope Jul 2016

Dynamics Of Microtubule Networks With Antiparallel Crosslinkers, Kasimira T. Stanhope

Masters Theses

Microtubules are the most rigid element of the cytoskeleton. They are responsible for the structure of cells and make up the tracks for intracellular cargo transport. Interactions between microtubules, motor proteins, and microtubule-associated proteins drive important mechanisms in the cell, such as cell division, cell motility, cell homeostasis, and cell signaling. I seek to understand how such complex, energy-consuming non-equilibrium biological networks self-organize by studying in vitro microtubules bundled by microtubule-associated protein 65 (MAP65), in kinesin-1 gliding assays. I found that large networks can break into smaller, cell-like networks that can mimic types of cell motility. Dynamics of these networks …