Quantifying the polymerization dynamics of plant cortical microtubules using kymograph analysis

Rudy Zhou, Han Liu, Tao Ju, Ram Dixit

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

The plant cortical microtubule array is a dynamic structure that confers cell shape and enables plants to alter their growth and development in response to internal and external cues. Cells use a variety of microtubule regulatory proteins to spatially and temporally modulate the intrinsic polymerization dynamics of cortical microtubules to arrange them into specific configurations and to reshape arrays to adapt to changing conditions. To obtain mechanistic insight into how particular microtubule regulatory proteins mediate the dynamic (re)structuring of cortical microtubule arrays, we need to measure their effect on the dynamics of cortical microtubules. In this chapter, we describe new ImageJ plugins to generate kymographs from time-lapse images and to analyze them to measure the parameters that quantitatively describe cortical microtubule dynamics.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPlant Cell Biology
EditorsCharles T. Anderson, Elizabeth S. Haswell, Ram Dixit
PublisherAcademic Press Inc.
Pages281-293
Number of pages13
ISBN (Print)9780128215333
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020

Publication series

NameMethods in Cell Biology
Volume160
ISSN (Print)0091-679X

Keywords

  • Arabidopsis
  • Dynamic instability
  • ImageJ
  • Interpolation
  • Key frame
  • Microtubule-associated proteins
  • Microtubules
  • Space-time plot

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