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NJIT Mathematical Biology Seminar

Tuesday, April 20, 2010, 2:30pm
Cullimore Hall 611
New Jersey Institute of Technology

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Topological phonon modes and their role in dynamic instability of microtubules

Camelia Prodan

Department of Physics, NJIT

Microtubules are part of the skeleton of every eukaryotic cell. In live cells, the MTs continuously grow and shrink. This phenomenon, called dynamical instability (DI), plays an important role during cell division. Since cancerous cells divide much faster than normal ones, the philosophy behind most cancer drugs, like taxol, is to interfere with DI. Most of these drugs are designed by trial and error because the mechanism of DI is not yet understood. In a recent paper we put forward a new mechanism for DI and for how taxol may interfere with it. The main idea is that the edge of the microtubules display remarkable properties called topological phonon states. This edge states are consequences of the unusual bulk properties of the microtubules, they cannot be destroyed by any chemical, mechanical etc treatment of the edge and they play a role in DI. Taxol may change the bulk properties of the MTs thus changing the edge states.