Chrétien Denis, Guyomar Charlotte
Univ Rennes, CNRS, IGDR (Institut de génétique et développement de Rennes)-UMR 6290, F-35000 Rennes, France.
Biol Cell. 2023 May;115(5):e202300004. doi: 10.1111/boc.202300004. Epub 2023 Mar 6.
At first glance, the structure of a microtubule is simple. Globular α- and β-tubulin subunits form constitutive heterodimers that align head-to-tail in protofilaments. In the most common configuration, 13 protofilaments associate laterally with a slight longitudinal stagger that results in a left-handed 3-start helix featuring lateral associations between tubulin subunits. This seemingly straightforward description is actually based on almost half a century of research aimed at understanding how tubulin dimers interact within the microtubule lattice. But while we start to have a good overview of their architecture in vitro, our knowledge of microtubule-lattice organization in vivo is nowhere near to being complete.
乍一看，微管的结构很简单。球状的α-微管蛋白和β-微管蛋白亚基形成组成型异源二聚体，这些二聚体在原丝中首尾相连排列。在最常见的结构中，13条原丝以轻微的纵向交错侧向结合，形成一个左手三起始螺旋，其特征是微管蛋白亚基之间存在侧向结合。这个看似简单直接的描述实际上是基于近半个世纪旨在了解微管蛋白二聚体在微管晶格内如何相互作用的研究。虽然我们开始对它们在体外的结构有了很好的总体认识，但我们对微管晶格在体内的组织情况的了解还远远不够完整。
