Molecular machine, not assembly line, assembles microtubules
Thursday, August 20, 2015 - 17:30
in Biology & Nature
UC Davis researchers show how four proteins come together to make the machine that assembles tubulin, the building block of microtubules. When they think about how cells put together the molecules that make life work, biologists have tended to think of assembly lines: Add A to B, tack on C, and so on. But the reality might be more like a molecular version of a 3-D printer, where a single mechanism assembles the molecule in one go.