Microtubule Assembly Dyn at the Nanoscale

port, and serve broadly as scaffolding for transport and a temporal resolution ofw30 Hz. Recent studies estab-morphological changes. To respond and adapt to changing cellular demands, microtubules undergo an unusual self-assembly mechanism, called dynamic in-stability, in which the end of the microtubule switches lished the use of optical tweezers in combination with a microfabricated chamber [14, 15] as a method for tracking microtubule assembly dynamics, with the spa-tial resolution being at least an order of magnitude better than traditional video microscopy achieved through video analysis [14]. In this assay, individual microtubules are held with optical tweezers and allowed to polymerize under a compressive load (without buckling) against th