Can anyone please explain how to interpret a MT related kymograph (like polymerization depolymerization or any other parameter etc) with figures. How a kymograph look if a kinesis depolymerize MT from single end and both ends? What all the info one can get or calculate from a kymograph and how do one can get all that info with tools (ImageJ).
Thanks!
It's helpful to understand how a kymograph is made first. A kymograph is really a representation of a microtubule in both time and space. If you have a movie of a microtubule, you can think of your kymograph as a just a scan, or a cut and paste, of a single microtubule, over and over. In that way, each line as you go down the kymograph is another time point. So, as you look from top to bottom of the kymograph, you are seeing the experiment from start to finish.
If a microtubule is growing, then it'll look like it's getting bigger, as you go from top to bottom. If it's depolymerizing, it'll look as if it's getting smaller as you go from top to bottom.
If you want to know anything specific about behavior, you have to know the conversion of pixels in y to time, and pixels to x to length. Knowing those, you can fit a line to the polymerizing section of a microtubule and figure out the polymerization rate. That's pretty easy with ImageJ.
If a MT depolmerizes from one end, it'll look like it's decreasing in length on just one end. If it's from both ends, it'll look like it's decreasing from both sides, as you look from top to bottom of the kymograph
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