Taking directions: self-organization of cortical microtubule array in plants
Taking directions: self-organization of cortical microtubule array in plants
- Event time: 11:30am
- Event date: 10th October 2012
- Speaker: Bela Mulder (AMOLF)
- Location: Room 2511, James Clerk Maxwell Building (JCMB) James Clerk Maxwell Building Peter Guthrie Tait Road Edinburgh EH9 3FD GB
Event details
The majority of plant cells grow by expansion along single axis. To control this direction they employ a unique structure, the so-called transverse microtubule array. A dynamic network of microtubules bound to inside of the plasma membrane self-organizes into this highly aligned and robustly oriented structure. We have developed both an analytical model as well as an event-driven simulation scheme to elucidate how collisions between the dynamic microtubules lead to the observed ordering, employing a molecular-level selection mechanism we have dubbed "survival of the aligned". We will discuss the application of our model to data from the build-up of the cortical array after cytokinesis and division plane selection in developmental mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana.
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