Flexural Rigidity of a Single Microtubule.

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  • Takasone Toru
    Department of Ecosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Minami-josanjima, Tokushima 770, Japan
  • Juodkazis Saulius
    Department of Ecosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Minami-josanjima, Tokushima 770, Japan
  • Kawagishi Yuji
    Department of Ecosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Minami-josanjima, Tokushima 770, Japan
  • Yamaguchi Akira
    Department of Ecosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Minami-josanjima, Tokushima 770, Japan
  • Matsuo Shigeki
    Department of Ecosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Minami-josanjima, Tokushima 770, Japan
  • Sakakibara Hitoshi
    Kansai Advanced Research Center, Communications Research Laboratory, Kobe 651-2401, Japan
  • Nakayama Haruto
    Kansai Advanced Research Center, Communications Research Laboratory, Kobe 651-2401, Japan
  • Misawa Hiroaki
    Department of Ecosystem Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Minami-josanjima, Tokushima 770, Japan
  • Swinburne University of Technology

Bibliographic Information

Published
2002
DOI
  • 10.1143/jjap.41.3015
Publisher
The Japan Society of Applied Physics

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Description

Microtubules, which are flexible biopolymers, can be used for nanotechnology applications (e.g., nano-actuator) as they have a rigidity similar to that of plexyglass and other plastic materials. The flexural rigidity, or bending stiffness, of microtubules was measured using a laser trapping technique and dark-field microscopy. One end of a microtubule rod was chemically bound to a glass microsphere, while the other end was bound to a silica glass substrate. Then, the microsphere was laser-trapped and manipulated to exert three different deformation modes on the microtubule. The values of flexural rigidity for these deformations were between 10-25 and 10-23 Nm2 as measured for the 5-25 μm length microtubules. The origin of the length dependence of the flexural rigidity of microtubules is discussed.

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