Building a synthetic centrosome

The centrosome is a structure in cells which is built every time the cell prepares to divide. In this video abstract, Jeff Woodruff explains how to build a centrosome in a test tube from purified proteins. He found that the centrosome acts like a sponge, which selectively soaks up the proteins needed to build microtubules.

Read more in the full paper, published in the journal Cell: http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S00…

See the full blog post at: http://www.sciencesketches.org/single…

Jeff Woodruff is a postdoc in the lab of Tony Hyman (hymanlab.org) at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany