Electrostatic Specifications of Single Cancer vs. Brain Microtubules In Vitro Obtained from Their Electro-orientation Behavior

Microtubules, one of the intracellular components, are involved in many cellular functions including, but not limited to, cell division and intracellular transportations. Tubulins, which are the building block of microtubules, may be expressed in different isotypes. The recently reported results indicate that the biomechanical functions of microtubules can be affected due to the distribution of different tubulin isotypes in their compositional structures. The difference in the electric charge of the carboxy-terminal tails of tubulin isotypes is the major reason that these isotypes are distinct from each other. Two groups of microtubules, cancer microtubules and brain microtubules, are structured from significantly different distributions of beta tubulin isotypes. In this study, we compare the electro-orientation behavior of individual human breast cancer microtubules vs. porcine brain microtubules inside a uniform electric field in vitro. We will discuss our recently reported results related to the electrostatic specifications of these two groups of microtubules.