Citation

  • Authors: Magiera, M. M., Janke, C.
  • Year: 2013
  • Journal: Methods Cell Biol 115 247-67
  • Applications: in vitro / DNA / jetPEI
  • Cell type: U-2 OS
    Description: Human bone osteosarcoma
    Known as: U2OS

Abstract

Microtubules play highly diverse and essential roles in every eukaryotic cell. While built from conserved dimers of alpha- and beta-tubulin, microtubules can be diversified by posttranslational modifications in order to fulfill specific functions in cells. The tubulin posttranslational modifications: acetylation, detyrosination, polyglutamylation, and polyglycylation play important roles in microtubule functions; however, only little functional and mechanistic insight has been gained so far. The modification state of microtubules can be visualized with specific antibodies. A drawback is that detailed information about the specificities and limitations of these antibodies are not easily accessible in the literature. We provide here a comprehensive description of the currently available set of antibodies specific to tubulin modifications. Focusing on glutamylation antibodies, we discuss specific protocols that allow using these antibodies to gain semi-quantitative information on the levels and distribution of tubulin modifications in immunocytochemistry and immunoblot.

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