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Speckle microscopic evaluation of microtubule transport in growing nerve processes

Nature Cell Biology volume 1, pages 399–403 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Assembly of microtubules is fundamental to neuronal morphogenesis. Microtubules typically form crosslinked bundles in nerve processes, precluding resolution of single microtubules at the light microscopic level. Therefore, previous studies of microtubule transport in neurites have had to rely on indirect approaches. Here we show that individual microtubules can be visualized directly in the axonal shafts of Xenopus embryo neurons by using digital fluorescence microscopy. We find that, although the array of axonal microtubules is dynamic, microtubules are stationary relative to the substrate. These results argue against a model in which newly synthesized tubulin is transported down the axon in the form of microtubules.

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Figure 1: Direct visualization of substructures in the array of axonal microtubules.
Figure 2: A speckle pattern of fluorescence along microtubules.
Figure 3: Fluorescence speckles are largely stationary relative to the substrate.
Figure 4: Electron microscopy of microtubules in the axonal shaft.
Figure 5: Fast axonal transport of tubulin-containing structures.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Baas, M. Kozlov, M. Rasenick and V. Rodionov for helpful discussions. This work was supported by NIH grants to S.V.P. and G.G.B.

Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.V.P.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology and Biophysics M/C 901, University of Illinois at Chicago, 835 South Wolcott Avenue, Chicago, 60612, , Illinois, USA

    Sunghoe Chang & Sergey V. Popov

  2. Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Wisconsin , 1525 Linden Drive, Madison, 53706, , Wisconsin , USA

    Tatyana M. Svitkina & Gary G. Borisy

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  1. Sunghoe Chang
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  3. Gary G. Borisy
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  4. Sergey V. Popov
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Correspondence to Sergey V. Popov.

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Chang, S., Svitkina, T., Borisy, G. et al. Speckle microscopic evaluation of microtubule transport in growing nerve processes. Nat Cell Biol 1, 399–403 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/15629

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