2026-10-14T22:10:15Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/34023669 2026-09-29T12:11:09Z portal_1197 item_type_6 month_year_09_2026

Taxol acts differently on different tubulin isotypes Yean Ming Chew (24951808) Robert A. Cross (7579400) Paclitaxel Tubulins Microtubules Kinesin Biophysics Migrated from ePrints Taxol is a small molecule effector that allosterically locks tubulin into the microtubule lattice. We show here that taxol has different effects on different single-isotype microtubule lattices. Using in vitro reconstitution, we demonstrate that single-isotype α1β4 GDP-tubulin lattices are stabilised and expanded by 10 μM taxol, as reported by accelerated microtubule gliding in kinesin motility assays, whereas single-isotype α1β3 GDP-tubulin lattices are stabilised but not expanded. This isotype-specific action of taxol drives gliding of segmented-isotype GDP-taxol microtubules along convoluted, sinusoidal paths, because their expanded α1β4 segments try to glide faster than their compacted α1β3 segments. In GMPCPP, single-isotype α1β3 and α1β4 lattices both show accelerated gliding, indicating that both can in principle be driven to expand. We therefore propose that taxol-induced lattice expansion requires a higher taxol occupancy than taxol-induced stabilisation, and that higher taxol occupancies are accessible to α1β4 but not α1β3 single-isotype lattices. 2023-09-16T00:00:00Z Text Journal contribution 10.1038/s42003-023-05306-y| https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Taxol_acts_differently_on_different_tubulin_isotypes/34023669 CC BY 4.0