Sentences with phrase «like microtubules»

«The trails left behind can be astonishingly like microtubules,» Brasier says.

This particular active material, originally developed at Brandeis University, borrows elements of cellular machinery, with bundles of rod - like microtubules forming the filaments, kinesin motor proteins acting as the engines, and ATP as the fuel.

Not exact matches

The core of a sperm's whip - like tail is the axoneme, a long tube consisting of nine pairs of microtubules arranged in a column around a central pair, all of which extend the entire length of the tail.

The team found changes in a gene encoding a previously unknown «dynein,» a protein that moves like a railroad locomotive along cytoskeletal fibers called microtubules, hauling other molecules as cargo.

«Zika virus infections cause a drastic perturbation of the cytoskeletal network, re-organizing both intermediate filaments and microtubules into a cage - like structure that surrounds the replication machinery.»

Kemp and Payne realized that if they could anchor the reporter protein to microtubules — fibrous structures that crisscross cells like railroad tracks — they might obtain the location information they needed.

Like the family of taxanes (of which paclitaxel is a member), epothilones prevent cancer cells from dividing by interfering with tubulin proteins that form the cells» skeletal microtubules.

The worm - like structures are microtubules driven by kinesin motor proteins.

To do this, they have to keep reorganizing their cytoskeleton, removing pieces from one end of a microtubule and adding them to the front, like a railroad with a limited supply of tracks.

If you imagine the female egg cell (and later, the fertilized egg) as a spherical planet with its own intrinsic biological geography, then certain characteristics of that cell — the location of protein molecules or RNA messages or biochemical traits like pH or even the internal connective structures called microtubules — will be more prominent in certain regions, like one hemisphere as opposed to the other, or near the surface rather than near the core.

When a sperm penetrates the egg, it unwraps the centrosome, an organelle that acts like a construction foreman overseeing the creation of microtubules in the cell.

As a result, the motor protein draws the minus ends of microtubules together, creating star - like clusters called asters.

If microtubules break, the result is much like what happens when a railroad track is damaged.

The mitotic spindle is composed of thread - like proteins, called microtubules, which extend from one of two spindle poles on either side of the cell to the duplicated chromosomes in the cell's center.

These stray chromosomes begin by attaching themselves to any microtubule from the network, which covers almost every nook and cranny, a bit like a network of secondary roads of the mitotic spindle.

All this requires a bridge - like protein structure called the kinetochore that maintains the proper force or tension, like bridge cables stabilizing the chromosomes as they interact with spindle filaments called microtubules.

Professor Cross said: «It has been known for some time that a team of proteins called TOGs sits on the tip of the growing microtubule track and works like a team of tiny railway workers to rapidly lay the new microtubule track.

«Motors that move along microtubule tracks like cars on a highway do a lot of work in cells.

The mitotic spindle includes thousands of microtubules, rod - like structures with polarized tips, which biologists term «plus ends» and «minus ends.»

The microtubules also take an active role in the process, pulling away like a banana peel as division progresses.

Previous work by Kolomeisky and his students showed how microtubules are continually built, destroyed and rebuilt by cells that reuse the molecular building blocks like Legos.

Miniscule carriers, the motor proteins, slide along the microtubules with great volumes such as chromosomes, vesicles and other subcellular components — like mitochondria — latched onto them.

«Knowing how much force the microtubules and spindle exert on the kinetochore is very important because it's like a bridge,» Maresca says.

«We hypothesized that toxins would change the typical way microtubules are chemically modified in neurons and that a drug like tubacin could restore those modifications to normal, thereby treating the disease.»

GAS2 - like proteins mediate communication between microtubules and actin through interactions with end - binding proteins.

However, imaging nanometer - scale structures like centrosomes and microtubule bundles within the depth of a tissue is still challenging.

Like actin, microtubules possess directionality because their subunits attach in a head - to - tail fashion — and inside the cell, the microtubule filaments are arranged in a characteristic way.