Mica Surface Promotes the Assembly of Cytoskeletal Proteins

Loic Hamon (1) , Dulal Panda (2) , Philippe Savarin (1) , Vandana Joshi (1) , Johann Bernhard (1) , Elodie Mucher (1) , Alain Mechulam (1) , Patrick Curmi (1) , David Pastré (1)

1 SABNP - Structure et activité des biomolécules normales et pathologiques
2 IIT Bombay - Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

We report the surface-mediated polymerization of FtsZ protein, the prokaryote homologue of tubulin, by AFM.FtsZ protein can form filaments on mica whereas the bulk FtsZ concentration is orders of magnitude lower than thecritical concentration. Surface polymerization is favored by a local increase in protein concentration and requires ahigh mobility of proteins on the surface. To generalize to other cytoskeleton protein, we also show that mica can initiatethe formation of tubulin protofilaments. This study is of particular interest for studying cytoskeletal protein dynamicsby AFM but also for the surface autoassembly of nanostructures.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Loic Hamon, Dulal Panda, Philippe Savarin, Vandana Joshi, Johann Bernhard, et al.. Mica Surface Promotes the Assembly of Cytoskeletal Proteins. Langmuir, 2009, 25 (6), pp.3331-3335. ⟨10.1021/la8035743⟩. ⟨hal-02294800⟩