ArticleBiophysical journal1998
How microtubules get fluorescent speckles.
Article in Biophysical journal, 1998. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed.
- Constitutively active mDia1 enables visualization of actin assembly in filopodia.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cytoplasmic flow is a cell size sensor that scales anaphase.Nature cell biology · 2025Article
- Modulation of the cytoskeleton for cancer therapy.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Article
- Dissipation and energy propagation across scales in an active cytoskeletal material.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Length-dependent poleward flux of sister kinetochore fibers promotes chromosome alignment.Cell reports · 2022Article
- Profilin choreographs actin and microtubules in cells and cancer.International review of cell and molecular biology · 2020Article
- Accelerated actin filament polymerization from microtubule plus ends.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2016Article
- Neurodegeneration and microtubule dynamics: death by a thousand cuts.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2015Review
- Dynamics and organization of cortical microtubules as revealed by superresolution structured illumination microscopy.Plant physiology · 2014Article
- Xenopus cytoplasmic linker-associated protein 1 (XCLASP1) promotes axon elongation and advance of pioneer microtubules.Molecular biology of the cell · 2013Article
- Estimating the microtubule GTP cap size in vivo.Current biology : CB · 2012Article
- How we discovered fluorescent speckle microscopy.Molecular biology of the cell · 2011Article
- Microtubule Tip Tracking and Tip Structures at the Nanometer Scale Using Digital Fluorescence Microscopy.Cellular and molecular bioengineering · 2011Article
- Analysis of microtubule dynamic instability using a plus-end growth marker.Nature methods · 2010Article
- Model Convolution: A Computational Approach to Digital Image Interpretation.Cellular and molecular bioengineering · 2010Article
- Kinesin velocity increases with the number of motors pulling against viscoelastic drag.European biophysics journal : EBJ · 2010Article
- Fast microtubule dynamics in meiotic spindles measured by single molecule imaging: evidence that the spindle environment does not stabilize microtubules.Molecular biology of the cell · 2010Article
- Analysis of microtubule polymerization dynamics in live cells.Methods in cell biology · 2010Review
- Photoactivatable green fluorescent protein-tubulin.Methods in cell biology · 2010Review
- Porphyrins affect the self-assembly of tubulin in solution.Biophysical chemistry · 2009Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The dynamics of microtubules in living cells can be seen by fluorescence microscopy when fluorescently labeled tubulin is microinjected into cells, mixing with the cellular tubulin pool and incorporating into microtubules. The subsequent fluorescence distribution along microtubules can appear "speckled" in high-resolution images obtained with a cooled CCD camera (Waterman-Storer and Salmon, 1997. J. Cell Biol. 139:417-434). In this paper we investigate the origins of these fluorescent speckles. In vivo microtubules exhibited a random pattern of speckles for different microtubules and different regions of an individual microtubule. The speckle pattern changed only after microtubule shortening and regrowth. Microtubules assembled from mixtures of labeled and unlabeled pure tubulin in vitro also exhibited fluorescent speckles, demonstrating that cellular factors or organelles do not contribute to the speckle pattern. Speckle contrast (measured as the standard deviation of fluorescence intensity along the microtubule divided by the mean fluorescence intensity) decreased as the fraction of labeled tubulin increased, and it was not altered by the binding of purified brain microtubule-associated proteins. Computer simulation of microtubule assembly with labeled and unlabeled tubulin showed that the speckle patterns can be explained solely by the stochastic nature of tubulin dimer association with a growing end. Speckle patterns can provide fiduciary marks in the microtubule lattice for motility studies or can be used to determine the fraction of labeled tubulin microinjected into living cells.
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