Cellular life hinges on a network of hollow cables called microtubules dynamically lengthening and shortening according to the needs of the moment. During cell division, for instance, these cables ...

Microtubules perform an active role in communication within the cell by transmitting received signals to the cell's functional units. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI and the Department ...

Discover the latest articles and news in related subjects. Actually, I had no idea in the early 1960s that I was entering the arena of microtubule research, because it hadn't yet been defined as an ...

A new study by researchers from Drexel University College of Medicine reverses the popular scientific dogma that the protein tau stabilizes microtubules within brain cells. The scientists’ new ...

Microtubules—cellular "highways" that deliver cargo to the cell membrane for secretion—have a surprising role in pancreatic beta cells. Instead of facilitating glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, ...

As organisms grow, live, and move through the world, they're subjected to an array of internal and external forces. Biological forms must be able to withstand the stresses of stretching and ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: For nearly 40 years, scientists have debated whether some aspects of ...

The failure of pancreatic beta cells to release appropriate amounts of insulin in response to rising blood glucose levels is a hallmark of type 2 diabetes. During the past decade researchers have ...

A pathway to the design of even more effective versions of the powerful anti-cancer drug Taxol has been opened with the most detailed look ever at the assembly and disassembly of microtubules, tiny ...

Microtubules, the dynamic filaments that form the cell's internal scaffolding, have long been viewed as mere passive structural supports. But a new study reveals they play a far more active signaling ...