Russian Academy of Sciences

Microtubules, polymers of tubulin, are one of the main components of cytoskeleton. In many types of animal cells, microtubules form a radial network whose center is the centrosome. The microtubule network is very dynamic and can be rearranged rapidly, e.g., dur-ing the transition of a cell to mitosis. The mobility of the network and its geometry is important for many cel-lular functions and determined by inherent properties of the microtubules and the centrosome. In living cells, microtubules are in dynamic equilib-rium with the pool of dissolved tubulin. The microtu-bule construction from tubulin is a two-step process. At the first stage, referred to as nucleation, an oligomeric tubulin nucleus is formed. After this, at the stage of elongation, the microtubules grow, i.e. new molecule