MICROTUBULE DYNAMICS

A combination of biochemical, structural, and morphological analyses during the last 2 decades has shown that the cytoplasm of a cell is not a disorganized mass of jelly but a highly structured cell compartment formed of a cytoskeleton, one of which principal components are the microtubules. More recently, studies have revealed that microtubule cytoskeleton is not only well organized but highly dynamic, and that microtubule dynamics may be responsible for several cell functions such as chromosome segregation, cell morphogenesis, or intracytoplasmic organization.