Beta-tubulin

Ranganathan S, Benetatos CA, Colamsso PJ et al (1998) Altered beta-tubulin isotype expression in paclitaxel-resistant human prostate carcinoma cells. Br J Cancer 77 562-566... 

Protofilaments (composed of alpha and beta tubulin subunits)... 

Microtubules are straight, hollow cylinders about 25 nm in diameter built by the assembly of dimers of alpha tubulin and beta tubulin. They participate in a wide variety of cell activities. Most involve motion. The motion is provided by protein motors that use the energy of ATP to move along the microtubule. There are two major groups of microtubule motors kinesins and dyneins. 

Ren, Y., J. Zhao, and J. Feng, Parkin binds to alpha/beta tubulin and increases their ubiquitination and degradation./ Neurosci, 2003, 23(8), 3316-24. 

Microtubules can be characterized as long hollow cylinders with outer diameters ranging between 20 nm and 30 nm and an inner diameter of about 14 nm. Their main constituent is alpha or beta tubulin, which is often the target of inhibitors and marker. 

Anti-alpha or beta-tubulin can also be used. Aurora-A provides the advantage of easier identification of mitotic cells and spindle structure since it only localizes on the mitotic spindle and centrosomes during mitosis and not to microtubules in general. Also, it allows visualization of both spindle structure and centrosomes with a single antibody. 

Rao S, Krauss NE, Heerding JM, et al. 3 -(p-azidobenzamido)taxol photolabels the N-terminal 31 amino acids of beta-tubulin. J Biol Chem 1994 269(5) 3132-3134. 

Giannakakou P, Sackett DL, Kang YK, et al. Paclitaxel-resistant human ovarian cancer cells have mutant beta-tubulins that exhibit impaired paclitaxel-driven polymerization. J Biol Chem 1997 272(27) 17,118-17,125. 

Kavallaris M, Kuo DY, Burkhart CA, et al. Taxol-resistant epithelial ovarian tumors are associated with altered expression of specific beta-tubulin isotypes. J Clin Invest 1997 100(5) 1282-1293. 

Montgomery RB, Guzman J, O Rourke DM, Stahl WL. Expression of oncogenic epidermal growth factor receptor family kinases induces paclitaxel resistance and alters beta-tubulin isotype expression. J Biol Chem 2000 275 17,358-17,363. 

Prasannan L, Misek DE, Hinderer R, Michon J, Geiger JD, Hanash SM. (2000) Identification of beta-tubulin isoforms as tumor antigens in neuroblastoma. Clin Cancer Res 6, 3949-56. 

Pape, M., Posedi, J., Failing, K., Schnieder, T. and von Samson-Himmelstjerna, G. (2003) Analysis of the beta-tubulin codon 200 genotype distribution in a benzimidazole-susceptible and -resistant cythostome population. Parasitology 127, 53-59. 

Yamamoto, E. and Baird, W. V. (1999). Molecular characterization of four beta-tubulin genes from dinitroaniline susceptible and resistant biotypes of Eleusine indica. Plant Mol. Biol. 39, 45-61. 

Lee MK, Rebhun LI, Frankfurter A (1990) Posdranslational modification of class III beta-tubulin. Proc Nati Acad Sci USA 87 7195-7199 Lendahl U, Zimmerman LB, McKay RD (1990) CNS stem cells express a new class of intermediate filament protein. Cell 60 585-595 Levison SW, Rothstein RP, Romanko MJ, Snyder MJ, Meyers RL, Vannucci SJ (2001) Hy-poxia/ischemia depletes the rat perinatal subventricular zone of oligodendrocyte progenitors and neural stem cells. Dev Neurosci 23 234-247... 

Fig. 9 The hydrophobic binding pocket for T -Taxol on beta tubulin. Color on the surface model ranges from most lipophilic (brown) to most hydrophilic (blue). The ribbon view of beta tubulin is colored by secondary structure with red - alpha helices and blue - beta sheets...

Fig. 23 Bridging biological space. The overlap of epothilone B (cyan carbons) and PTX (green carbons) models derived from EC reveal shared anchors between the exchangeable nucleotide site through H227 and the truncated B9-B10 loop of the beta tubulin site. Perhaps rigidifying this vector across the site is of greater importance to the MT stabilizing effect than picking up interactions within the deep hydrophobic pocket...

Figure 3.6 Images depicting the binding of (a) epothilone A (yellow) and (b) taxol (yellow) to alpha beta-tubulin (green and cyan). The images were developed from X-ray crystal structure datasets ltvk (epothilone A) and ljff (taxol), which are readily available from the Protein Data Bank.

KavaUaris, M. Burkhart, C. A. Horwitz, S. B. Antisense oligonucleotides to class III beta-tubulin sensitize drug-resistant cells to Taxol. Br. J. Cancer, 1999, 80 1020-1025. 

Monzo, M. Rosell, R. Sanchez, J. J. Lee, J. S. O Brate, A. Gonzalez-Larriba, J. L. Alberola, V. Lorenzo, J. C. Nunez, L. Ro, J. Y Martin, C. Paclitaxel resistance in non-small-cell lung cancer associated with beta-tubulin gene mutations. J. Clin. Oncol., 1999, 17 1786-1793. 

The antiprotozoal activity of fenbendazole, a benzimidazole derivative, is similar to that of mebendazole the target seems to be the microtubule protein beta-tubulin. Its adverse effects are comparable to those of mebendazole (1). 

Katiyar SK, Gordon VR, McLaughlin GL, Edlind TD. Antiprotozoal activities of benzimidazoles and correlations with beta-tubulin sequence. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 1994 38(9) 2086-90. 

Baneijee, A., Roach, M. C., Trcka, P. and Luduena, R. F. (1992) Preparation of a monoclonal antibody specific for the class IV isotype of beta-tubulin. Purification and assembly of alpha beta II, alpha beta III, and alpha beta IV tubulin dimers from bovine brain. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 267, 5625-5630. 

Schwarz, P. M., Liggins, J. R. and Luduena, R. F. (1998) Beta-tubulin isotypes purified from bovine brain have different relative stabilities. Biochemistry, 37, 4687 1692. 

Haber, M., Burkhart, C. A., Regl, D. L., et al. (1995) Altered expression of Mbeta2, the class ii beta-tubulin isotype, in a murine J774.2 cell line with a high level of taxol resistance. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 270, 31269-31275. 

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