Quantification of microtubule stutters: dynamic instability behaviors that are strongly associated with catastrophe
Shant Mahserejian, Jared P. Scripture, Ava J. Mauro, Elizabeth J. Lawrence, Erin M. Jonasson, Kristopher S. Murray, Jun Li, Melissa K. Gardner, Mark Alber, Marija Žanić, Holly V. Goodson
Abstract
nalysis (STADIA) that identifies and quantifies not only growth and shortening, but also a category of intermediate behaviors that we term "stutters." During stutters, the rate of MT length change tends to be smaller in magnitude than during typical growth or shortening phases. Quantifying stutters and other behaviors with STADIA demonstrates that stutters precede most catastrophes in our in vitro experiments and dimer-scale MT simulations, suggesting that stutters are mechanistically involved in catastrophes. Related to this idea, we show that the anticatastrophe factor CLASP2γ works by promoting the return of stuttering MTs to growth. STADIA enables more comprehensive and data-driven analysis of MT dynamics compared with previous methods. The treatment of stutters as distinct and quantifiable DI behaviors provides new opportunities for analyzing mechanisms of MT dynamics and their regulation by binding proteins.