Figure 1 - Different levels of modelling the microtubule motor system.

The microtubule cytoskeleton is studied at different levels, ranging from the analysis of the three-dimensional structure of tubulin and motor proteins, to the intracellular architecture of living cells. As the scale and the complexity of the system under study increase, different modelling approaches, and different experimental techniques, have to be applied. At each level, models aim to explain the emergence of features of the cytoskeleton from the knowledge of the essential properties at the previous level.