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Comment
. 2017 Aug 7;216(8):2247-2249.
doi: 10.1083/jcb.201705172. Epub 2017 Jul 7.

Tubulin isotype specificity in neuronal migration: Tuba8 can't fill in for Tuba1a

Takeshi Kawauchi  1   2
Affiliations
Comment

Tubulin isotype specificity in neuronal migration: Tuba8 can't fill in for Tuba1a

Takeshi Kawauchi. J Cell Biol. .

Abstract

Several tubulin isotypes, including Tuba1a, are associated with brain malformations. In this issue, Belvindrah et al. (2017. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201607074) show that Tuba1a and Tuba8 differentially regulate microtubule organization in neurons, and they provide insights into the mechanisms by which Tuba1a mutations disrupt adult mouse brain morphology.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Different features of α-tubulin isotypes and the brain malformation–related mutant. (A) Tuba1a S140G prefers to exhibit straighter conformation, which is measured by the intradimer angle between the core helix H7 of α- and β-tubulins. The microtubules containing Tuba1a S140G show straighter morphologies, which may result in different neuronal behaviors: more branching, loss of migration directionality, and slower migration. (B) Tuba1a and Tuba8 show different charge distribution in the H1-S2 loop. Tuba8-containing microtubules exhibit higher polymerization speed and less straightness, compared with Tuba1a. The structural images with the charge distribution are adapted from Belvindrah et al. (2017).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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