Interference of GTP hydrolysis in the mechanism of microtubule assembly: an experimental study

Dynamic instability of microtubule growth

We report here that microtubules in vitro coexist in growing and shrinking populations which interconvert rather infrequently. This dynamic instability is a general property of microtubules and may be fundamental in explaining cellular microtubule organization.

Polymerization of ADP-actin

Using hexokinase, glucose, and ATP to vary reversibly the concentrations of ADP and ATP in solution and bound to Acanthamoeba actin, I measured the relative critical concentrations and elongation rate constants for ATP-actin and ADP-actin in 50 mM KCl, 1 mM MgCl2, 1 mM EGTA, 0.1 mM nucleotide, 0.1 mM CaCl2, 10 mM imidazole, pH 7. By both steady-state and elongation rate methods, the critical concentrations are 0.1 microM for ATP-actin and 5 microM for ADP-actin. Consequently, a 5 microM solution of actin can be polymerized, depolymerized, and repolymerized by simply cycling from ATP to ADP and back to ATP. The critical concentrations differ, because the association rate constant is 10 times higher and the dissociation rate constant is five times lower for ATP-actin than ADP-actin. These results show that ATP-actin occupies both ends of actin filaments growing in ATP. The bound ATP must be split on internal subunits and the number of terminal subunits with bound ATP probably depends on the rate of growth.

Nucleoside diphosphate kinase from brain. Purification and effect on microtubule assembly in vitro

Tubulin strictly requires GTP for its polymerization. Nevertheless, microtubule assembly can be observed in the presence of ATP as the only nucleotide triphosphate, due to the nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDP kinase) present in microtubule preparations, and which phosphorylates the GDP into GTP. We have purified this enzyme from pig brain to homogeneity, and shown that its relative mass is close to 100 000 in its native state, and 17 000 under denaturing conditions. Therefore it is probably a hexamer, as previously shown for the enzyme from other sources, and also presents a microheterogeneity, with the major isoforms between pI 5.0 and 6.0. The enzyme is transiently phosphorylated during catalysis, as expected within a ping-pong bi-bi mechanism. The effect of the NDP kinase on pure tubulin polymerization was studied: in the presence of NDP kinase, the lag time observed in the kinetics of microtubule assembly was shorter and the final extent of assembly was unchanged. The effect of the enzyme was observed at enzyme concentrations 900-fold lower than tubulin concentration, which shows that the NDP kinase acts catalytically. Kinetic data show that the catalytic effect of the NDP kinase is faster than the rate of nucleotide exchange on tubulin under the same conditions. This result demonstrates that the tubulin-GDP complex itself is a substrate for the enzyme, which may indicate that the GDP bound to tubulin at the E site is exposed on the surface of dimeric tubulin.

Phase changes at the end of a microtubule with a GTP cap

Examination of Monte Carlo kinetic simulations, based on a realistic set of microscopic rate constants that apply to the end of a microtubule with a GTP cap, suggests that the end of a microtubule alternates between two quasimacroscopic phases. In one phase, the microtubule end has a GTP cap that fluctuates in size; in the other phase, the GTP cap has been lost. These repeated phase changes take place at any given tubulin concentration in a wide range of concentrations. While in the first phase, the microtubule grows slowly; while in the second phase, it shortens rapidly and may disappear completely. These results are closely related to the recent experimental work of Mitchison and Kirschner [Mitchison, T. & Kirschner, M.W. (1984) Nature (London), in press].

Rapid rate of tubulin dissociation from microtubules in the mitotic spindle in vivo measured by blocking polymerization with colchicine

At metaphase, the amount of tubulin assembled into spindle microtubules is relatively constant; the rate of tubulin association equals the rate of dissociation. To measure the intrinsic rate of dissociation, we microinjected high concentrations of colchicine, or its derivative colcemid, into sea urchin embryos at metaphase to bind the free tubulin, thereby rapidly blocking polymerization. The rate of microtubule disassembly was measured from a calibrated video signal by the change in birefringent retardation (BR). After an initial delay after injection of colchicine or colcemid at final intracellular concentrations of 0.1-3.0 mM, BR decreased rapidly and simultaneously throughout the central spindle and aster. Measured BR in the central half-spindle decreased exponentially to 10% of its initial value within a characteristic period of approximately 20 s; the rate constant, k = 0.11 +/- 0.023 s-1, and the corresponding half-time, t 1/2, of BR decay was approximately 6.5 +/- 1.1 s in this concentration range. Below 0.1 mM colchicine or colcemid, the rate at which BR decreased was concentration dependent. Electron micrographs showed that the rapid decrease in BR corresponded to the disappearance of nonkinetochore microtubules; kinetochore fiber microtubules were differentially stable. As a control, lumicolchicine, which does not bind to tubulin with high affinity, was shown to have no effect on spindle BR at intracellular concentrations of 0.5 mM. If colchicine and colcemid block only polymerization, then the initial rate of tubulin dissociation from nonkinetochore spindle microtubules is in the range of 180-992 dimers per second. This range of rates is based on k = 11% of the initial polymer per second and an estimate from electron micrographs that the average length of a half-spindle microtubule is 1-5.5 micron. Much slower rates of tubulin association are predicted from the characteristics of end-dependent microtubule assembly measured previously in vitro when the association rate constant is corrected for the lower rate of tubulin diffusion in the embryo cytoplasm. Various possibilities for this discrepancy are discussed.