Microtubules and motor proteins are building blocks of self-organized subcellular biological structures such as the mitotic spindle and the centrosomal microtubule array. These same ingredients can form new bioactive liquid-crystalline fluids that ar
e intrinsically out of equilibrium and which display complex flows and defect dynamics. It is not yet well understood how microscopic activity, which involves polarity-dependent interactions between motor proteins and microtubules, yields such larger scale dynamical structures. In our multiscale theory, Brownian dynamics simulations of polar microtubule ensembles driven by crosslinking motors allow us to study microscopic organization and stresses. Polarity sorting and crosslink relaxation emerge as two polar-specific sources of active destabilizing stress. On larger length scales, our continuum Doi-Onsager theory captures the hydrodynamic flows generated by polarity-dependent active stresses. The results connect local polar structure to flow structures and defect dynamics.
Proteins from the kinesin-8 family promote microtubule (MT) depolymerization, a process thought to be important for the control of microtubule length in living cells. In addition to this MT shortening activity, kinesin 8s are motors that show plus-en
d directed motility on MTs. Here we describe a simple model that incorporates directional motion and destabilization of the MT plus end by kinesin 8. Our model quantitatively reproduces the key features of length-vs-time traces for stabilized MTs in the presence of purified kinesin 8, including length-dependent depolymerization. Comparison of model predictions with experiments suggests that kinesin 8 depolymerizes processively, i.e., one motor can remove multiple tubulin dimers from a stabilized MT. Fluctuations in MT length as a function of time are related to depolymerization processivity. We have also determined the parameter regime in which the rate of MT depolymerization is length dependent: length-dependent depolymerization occurs only when MTs are sufficiently short; this crossover is sensitive to the bulk motor concentration.
