Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 9: Poster II

BP 9.3: Poster

Monday, March 16, 2020, 17:30–19:30, P2/2OG

Comparison of mechanisms of kinetochore capture with varying number of spindle microtubules — •Indrani Nayak, Dibyendu Das, and Amitabha Nandi — Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India

The capture of kinetochores by spindle microtubules is crucial for cell division. Earlier experimental studies have shown that dynamical instability driven search-and-capture of a kinetochore by spindle microtubules is a dominant mechanism in eukaryotes. A different mechanism has been reported in Schizosaccharomyces pombe, where spindle microtubules being pivoted at the spindle pole body search for the kinetochores. Our work compares these two mechanisms by studying the first passage times of kinetochore capture as a function of microtubule number N. In addition to the mean times, we also estimate a more robust measure, namely the characteristic times associated with the rare events of capture. We find upon varying N, one mechanism may be preferred over the other. While for fewer N (as in S. pombe), the characteristic capture times due to pivoting are lesser than those for search-and-capture, the behavior reverses at larger N. Our study provides a physical basis for the selection of one mechanism over another depending upon microtubule number. The characteristic timescales are obtained either by computing the survival probability of a kinetochore to high precision or using the statistics of extremes.