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-Structure paper
Title | Native molecular architectures of centrosomes in embryos. |
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Journal, issue, pages | bioRxiv, Year 2024 |
Publish date | Apr 3, 2024 |
![]() | Fergus Tollervey / Manolo U Rios / Evgenia Zagoriy / Jeffrey B Woodruff / Julia Mahamid / ![]() ![]() |
PubMed Abstract | Centrosomes organize microtubules that are essential for mitotic divisions in animal cells. They consist of centrioles surrounded by Pericentriolar Material (PCM). Questions related to mechanisms of ...Centrosomes organize microtubules that are essential for mitotic divisions in animal cells. They consist of centrioles surrounded by Pericentriolar Material (PCM). Questions related to mechanisms of centriole assembly, PCM organization, and microtubule formation remain unanswered, in part due to limited availability of molecular-resolution structural analyses . Here, we use cryo-electron tomography to visualize centrosomes across the cell cycle in cells isolated from embryos. We describe a pseudo-timeline of centriole assembly and identify distinct structural features including a cartwheel in daughter centrioles, and incomplete microtubule doublets surrounded by a star-shaped density in mother centrioles. We find that centriole and PCM microtubules differ in protofilament number (13 versus 11) indicating distinct nucleation mechanisms. This difference could be explained by atypical γ-tubulin ring complexes with 11-fold symmetry identified at the minus ends of short PCM microtubules. We further characterize a porous and disordered network that forms the interconnected PCM. Thus, our work builds a three-dimensional structural atlas that helps explain how centrosomes assemble, grow, and achieve function. |
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Methods | EM (subtomogram averaging) / EM (tomography) |
Resolution | 26.0 - 44.0 Å |
Structure data | ![]() EMDB-19778: in situ subtomogram average of C. elegans microtubules in mitotic centrosomes ![]() EMDB-19779: in-situ subtomogram average of C. elegans centrioles in centrosomes ![]() EMDB-19780: in situ subtomogram average of C. elegans gamma-tubulin ring complexes in mitotic centrosomes ![]() EMDB-19781: Cryo-ET of a mitotic centrosome in an embryonic C. elegans cell |
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