Skip to main content
NCBI home page
The Journal of Cell Biology logoLink to The Journal of Cell Biology
. 1988 Apr 1;106(4):1213–1220. doi: 10.1083/jcb.106.4.1213

Posttranslational modifications of alpha tubulin: detyrosination and acetylation differentiate populations of interphase microtubules in cultured cells

PMCID: PMC2115029  PMID: 3283150

Abstract

Subsets of microtubules enriched in posttranslationally detyrosinated (Gundersen, G. G., M. H. Kalnoski, and J. C. Bulinski. 1984. Cell. 38:779) or acetylated (Piperno, G., M. Le Dizet, and X. Chang. 1987. J. Cell Biol. 104:298), alpha tubulin have previously been described in interphase cultured cells. In this study an immunofluorescence comparison of these minor populations of microtubules revealed that, in African green monkey kidney epithelial cells (TC-7 line), the population of microtubules enriched in detyrosinated tubulin was virtually coincident with the population enriched in acetylated alpha tubulin. In some cell types, however, such as human HeLa or marsupial PtK-2 cells, only one posttranslationally modified form of tubulin, i.e., acetylated or detyrosinated, respectively, was detectable in microtubules. In TC-7 cells, although both modifications were present, dissimilar patterns and kinetics of reappearance of microtubules enriched in detyrosinated and acetylated tubulin were observed after recovery of cells from microtubule-depolymerizing treatments or from mitosis. Thus, a minor population of microtubules exists in cultured cells that contains an elevated level of tubulin modified in either one or two ways. While these two modifications occur primarily on the same subset of microtubules, they differ in their patterns of formation in vivo.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (2.9 MB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Barra H. S., Arce C. A., Rodríguez J. A., Caputto R. Some common properties of the protein that incorporates tyrosine as a single unit and the microtubule proteins. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1974 Oct 23;60(4):1384–1390. doi: 10.1016/0006-291x(74)90351-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Caron J. M., Jones A. L., Kirschner M. W. Autoregulation of tubulin synthesis in hepatocytes and fibroblasts. J Cell Biol. 1985 Nov;101(5 Pt 1):1763–1772. doi: 10.1083/jcb.101.5.1763. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Cleveland D. W., Sullivan K. F. Molecular biology and genetics of tubulin. Annu Rev Biochem. 1985;54:331–365. doi: 10.1146/annurev.bi.54.070185.001555. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Eipper B. A. Rat brain microtubule protein: purification and determination of covalently bound phosphate and carbohydrate. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1972 Aug;69(8):2283–2287. doi: 10.1073/pnas.69.8.2283. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Gard D. L., Kirschner M. W. A polymer-dependent increase in phosphorylation of beta-tubulin accompanies differentiation of a mouse neuroblastoma cell line. J Cell Biol. 1985 Mar;100(3):764–774. doi: 10.1083/jcb.100.3.764. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Geuens G., Gundersen G. G., Nuydens R., Cornelissen F., Bulinski J. C., DeBrabander M. Ultrastructural colocalization of tyrosinated and detyrosinated alpha-tubulin in interphase and mitotic cells. J Cell Biol. 1986 Nov;103(5):1883–1893. doi: 10.1083/jcb.103.5.1883. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Greer K., Maruta H., L'Hernault S. W., Rosenbaum J. L. Alpha-tubulin acetylase activity in isolated Chlamydomonas flagella. J Cell Biol. 1985 Dec;101(6):2081–2084. doi: 10.1083/jcb.101.6.2081. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Gundersen G. G., Bulinski J. C. Microtubule arrays in differentiated cells contain elevated levels of a post-translationally modified form of tubulin. Eur J Cell Biol. 1986 Dec;42(2):288–294. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Gundersen G. G., Kalnoski M. H., Bulinski J. C. Distinct populations of microtubules: tyrosinated and nontyrosinated alpha tubulin are distributed differently in vivo. Cell. 1984 Oct;38(3):779–789. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90273-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Gundersen G. G., Khawaja S., Bulinski J. C. Postpolymerization detyrosination of alpha-tubulin: a mechanism for subcellular differentiation of microtubules. J Cell Biol. 1987 Jul;105(1):251–264. doi: 10.1083/jcb.105.1.251. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Khawaja S., Gundersen G. G., Bulinski J. C. Enhanced stability of microtubules enriched in detyrosinated tubulin is not a direct function of detyrosination level. J Cell Biol. 1988 Jan;106(1):141–149. doi: 10.1083/jcb.106.1.141. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. L'Hernault S. W., Rosenbaum J. L. Chlamydomonas alpha-tubulin is posttranslationally modified by acetylation on the epsilon-amino group of a lysine. Biochemistry. 1985 Jan 15;24(2):473–478. doi: 10.1021/bi00323a034. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. LeDizet M., Piperno G. Cytoplasmic microtubules containing acetylated alpha-tubulin in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii: spatial arrangement and properties. J Cell Biol. 1986 Jul;103(1):13–22. doi: 10.1083/jcb.103.1.13. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Maruta H., Greer K., Rosenbaum J. L. The acetylation of alpha-tubulin and its relationship to the assembly and disassembly of microtubules. J Cell Biol. 1986 Aug;103(2):571–579. doi: 10.1083/jcb.103.2.571. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Piperno G., Fuller M. T. Monoclonal antibodies specific for an acetylated form of alpha-tubulin recognize the antigen in cilia and flagella from a variety of organisms. J Cell Biol. 1985 Dec;101(6):2085–2094. doi: 10.1083/jcb.101.6.2085. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Piperno G., LeDizet M., Chang X. J. Microtubules containing acetylated alpha-tubulin in mammalian cells in culture. J Cell Biol. 1987 Feb;104(2):289–302. doi: 10.1083/jcb.104.2.289. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Sandoval I. V., Cuatrecasas P. Protein kinase associated with tubulin: affinity chromatography and properties. Biochemistry. 1976 Aug 10;15(16):3424–3432. doi: 10.1021/bi00661a005. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Schulze E., Kirschner M. Dynamic and stable populations of microtubules in cells. J Cell Biol. 1987 Feb;104(2):277–288. doi: 10.1083/jcb.104.2.277. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Schulze E., Kirschner M. Microtubule dynamics in interphase cells. J Cell Biol. 1986 Mar;102(3):1020–1031. doi: 10.1083/jcb.102.3.1020. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Vallee R. B. MAP2 (microtubule-associated protein 2). Cell Muscle Motil. 1984;5:289–311. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4684-4592-3_8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Webster D. R., Gundersen G. G., Bulinski J. C., Borisy G. G. Differential turnover of tyrosinated and detyrosinated microtubules. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1987 Dec;84(24):9040–9044. doi: 10.1073/pnas.84.24.9040. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from The Journal of Cell Biology are provided here courtesy of The Rockefeller University Press

RESOURCES