Microtubule nucleation through phase separation

Cells must build cytoskeleton structures, such as microtubules, where they are locally needed within the cell, but how do they do this? In this video abstract, Amayra Hernández-Vega explains that in a test tube, microtubules can be formed locally through phase separation. She also found that the protein Tau can phase separate into droplets, which can then concentrate enough tubulin to nucleate and build microtubules. Read more in the full paper, published in the journal Cell Reports: http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/abst… and see the full blog post at: http://www.sciencesketches.org/single…

Amayra Hernández-Vega is a postdoc in the lab of Tony Hyman (http://hymanlab.org) at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.