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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Feb 23.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Phys. 2021 Jan 28;17(4):493–498. doi: 10.1038/s41567-020-01141-8

Figure 1: TPX2 uniformly coats microtubules and then forms periodically spaced droplets that can nucleate branches.

Figure 1:

(a) Initial films and subsequent droplets of TPX2 on microtubules visualized using TIRF microscopy (Movie 1). 1 μM GFP-TPX2 was spiked onto a passivated glass surface coated with Alexa568-labeled microtubules. Scale bars are 1 μm. (b) Large field of view of a TIRF experiment after droplets have formed along microtubules. GFP-TPX2 concentration is 1 μM. Microtubules with a droplet pattern are marked with a number. Scale bars are 5 μm. (c) TPX2 droplets on microtubules imaged using electron microscopy. 0.1 μM GFP-TPX2 was incubated with microtubules bound to a carbon grid. Scale bars are 100 nm. (d) Branched microtubules nucleating from TPX2 droplets formed along the initial mother microtubule, assembled in vitro as in [18] (Movie 2). Recombinant GFP-augmin and γ-TuRC purified from X. laevis meiotic cytosol were included. Arrows indicate branched microtubules. Scale bars are 5 μm (top) and 1 μm (bottom). Only the soluble Cy5-tubulin channel (magenta) was imaged over time to enable a higher frame rate. The GFP-TPX2 and GFP-augmin channel (cyan) and the A568 template microtubule channel (red) were only imaged at the start at 60 s.