Microtubule Dynamics and Cargo Localization in Cellular Response to Axon Injury

Hannah Scanlon

Duke University

"Microtubule Dynamics and Cargo Localization in Cellular Response to Axon Injury"

Microtubules are dynamic intracellular filaments which provide structure to cells and facilitate cargo transport. While cargo transport on stable microtubules has been previously studied in various settings, the impact of microtubule dynamics on transport as well as the influence of cargo signaling to direct microtubule growth remain open questions. This is of particular interest in neurons where microtubule dynamics and cargo localization are key to the cellular response to axon injury. Motivated by experiments in sea slugs, this project investigates the progression of microtubule geometries following axon injury to understand the impact on cargo localization. Preliminary results validate the biologically hypothesized geometries by demonstrating the expected cargo localization. We are currently coupling microtubule dynamics with cargo transport using multi-scale modeling to better understand these cellular processes which support neuronal regrowth.

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