Shweta Nandakumar
@bucklingmt.bsky.social
She/her, Postdoc at #CytoMorphoLab | Previously @schaedellab.bsky.social | Cytoskeleton 🧑🔬 | Motors ⚡| Bibliophile
Interested in a cross-scale understanding of #mechanobiology? Join the EMBO Workshop "Forces across scales" in Porto, Portugal, 27–30 April 2027. Deadline: 1 December 2026 https://meetings.embo.org/event/27-forces-scales #EMBOforces #EMBOevents 🧪
🔬 #JobAlert Interested in doing a PhD with us in #SyntheticBiology on the Reconstitution of Oscillatory Microtubule-Motor Systems? Check shorturl.at/wis5P (note the eligibility criteria) or/and get in touch with us shorturl.at/WmgOD. Deadline: 31 July 2026 #WeAreHiring #AcademicJobs #ScienceJobs
🚨 I am very happy to share the first preprint from our lab! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
SPACA9 Acts as a Molecular Staple Modulating Microtubule Dynamic Instability
Motile cilia rely on highly stable axonemal microtubules reinforced by microtubule inner proteins (MIPs) that form a network within their lumen, yet the functions of individual MIPs remain poorly unde...
biorxiv.org
Is there a size limit for cells ? How can cells replicate inside the architecture of their environment? Why do cells self-destroy ? This 15-minute movie vimeo.com/1173229237 shows our 2026 edition of the Living Architectures project at the @museeorsay.bsky.social
Interactions between single actin and vimentin filaments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.11.731581v1
We found the missing piece: the front and back also activate each other at a distance via two distinct mechanochemical pathways acting via the membrane and the cytoskeleton.
Microtubule comets in human iPSCs to kick off my first week of grad school! ☄️💫
🏆 GRAND PRIZE WINNER 🏆 Congratulations to Smilla-Maria Koy (BSc Student, Mick Lab, Saarland University, Germany) for winning our Image Competition! 🔬 "IMCD3 Spheroid with Cilia" captures primary cilia emerging into the lumen to show cell polarity. #FluorescenceFriday #Cilia #ConfocalMicroscopy
Saishree S. Iyer and Anna Akhmanova @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social review the mechanisms controlling plus-end elongation of centriolar and ciliary #microtubules, revealing shared principles. rupress.org/jcb/article/... #Centrioles #Cilia #Cytoskeleton
📣 New preprint from our lab! How does the cell place septins to actin or microtubules (MTs) with septins being ~10-100 times less than actin/tubulin? We found a phosphorylation switch controlled by GSK3 that makes that call 🧫🔬🧵 biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.06.723191v1 1/7
biorxiv.org
New preprint! We asked a simple question: How do very different activating adaptors all activate dynein? Turns out: same architecture, wildly different implementations 🧵👇 doi.org/10.64898/202...
doi.org
A very nice study showing that there is no obvious relationship between tubulin compaction/expansion state and its nucleotide state. Indeed, there is no experimental data demonstrating that GTP-tubulin is expanded in the GTP-cap at microtubule growing ends.
cryoEM papers@cryoempapers.bsky.social · 5mo agoMicrotubules in the axon are GDP bound but adopt a stable GTP-like expanded state pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41951886/ #cryoEM
1/3 Lab #Preprint alert…A cool study led by @MullickSan22454 in collab with @ms_chirps lab showing how tubulin glycylation regulates ciliary motors and MAPs in vitro. @biorxiv_biochem. #glycylation #tubulinPTMs #cilia #Intraflagellartransport. Read more biorxiv.org/content/10.648…
bioRxiv Biochemistry@biorxiv-biochem.bsky.social · 5mo agoTubulin glycylation regulates microtubule-protein interactions that are key for ciliary stability and trafficking https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.26.714406v1
New preprint out: arxiv.org/pdf/2604.01057 Together with JF Joanny and Sudipta, we introduce a "new" kind of active phase separation inspired by experiments with motors and microtubules and based on transport of species along a polar "pump"! @manuelthery.bsky.social @lblanchoin.bsky.social
arxiv.org
🥳 Excited to share our #diatom work out in @pnas.org. In a great collaboration with @nic-poulsen.bsky.social and @ulrichschwarz.bsky.social we show that diatoms modulate the curvature of their paths by dynamic switching of their cell–substrate contact sites. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2506122123
Cordula Reuther, Paula Santos-Otte, Stefan Diez and colleagues find that microtubule lattice defects facilitate spastin-mediated severing. journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/... #OpenAccess #ReadandPublish
🎉 Exciting news! Our paper has been accepted and is now published in Wiley Advanced Science! 🚀 Congratulations @bucklingmt.bsky.social Read it here: advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
Kinesin‐Induced Buckling Reveals the Limits of Microtubule Self‐Repair
You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Happy to share that the study is now published in Advanced Science 🙌🥳 : advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... I want to thank my co-authors and my amazing PI @lauraschaedel.bsky.social for all the help, lovely discussions and encouragement😀
Kinesin‐Induced Buckling Reveals the Limits of Microtubule Self‐Repair
This study shows that kinesin-driven buckling induces extensive microtubule lattice damage that often exceeds intrinsic self-repair and leads to filament failure. While curvature, motor motility, and...
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Shweta Nandakumar@bucklingmt.bsky.social · 12mo agoDespite their high rigidity, microtubules (MTs) dynamically bend and buckle in cells. MT-self repair is inherent to their metastable nature, but it remains unclear whether just inherent repair mechanisms are sufficient to maintain MT integrity🧵 (1/9) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Adaptations in Plasmodium tubulin determine distinct microtubule architectures, mechanics and drug susceptibility - Nature Communications
Tubulin conservation presents a challenge to understanding microtubules’ diverse functions in eukaryotes. Here, the authors characterize the structures of P. falciparum microtubules to show how evolut...
nature.com
An intracellular meteor shower. EB3 comets tracking growing microtubule plus-ends in a cultured cell.
Our new preprint is live!🎉 Cytosolic factors govern vimentin network architecture and mechanics. Cytosolic components shape vimentin IF networks & mechanics - beyond minimal reconstitutions. On bioRxiv now! Congrats @dyuthisreekumar.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
😍😍😍😍
Buzz Baum@buzzbaum.bsky.social · 7mo agoUsing micropatterning & thousands of hours on the microscope @manuelthery.bsky.social and the #CytoMorphoLab reimagined the Musée D’Orsay. Accompanied by an orchestra and poet, their images transported us into the cellular universe. I remembered why I am a cell biologist. All of this is in us. Wow!
Exciting new preprint from @schaedellab.bsky.social 🔬🧫 Vimentin network architecture and mechanics is mediated by cytosolic regulation. I can't help but marvel at the beautiful vimentin network images😍😍 I am so happy it's finally out😍😍❤️ Congratulations @dyuthisreekumar.bsky.social 👏🎉
bioRxiv Cell Biology@biorxiv-cellbio.bsky.social · 8mo agoCytosolic factors govern vimentin network architecture and mechanics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.08.697713v1
Paclitaxel induces NM2-dependent cellular contraction independent of microtubule acetylation in live cells www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Bored over the holidays? Give our new preprint on how #microtubule lattice alteration by taxols can regulate #RhoA #signalling via GEF-H1 a read! Perhaps a new mechanism of action for taxol #chemotherapeutics during interphase. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Happy holidays ✨🎄
Now online! Structural basis of microtubule-mediated signal transduction
Structural basis of microtubule-mediated signal transduction
This study presents a structural basis for understanding how microtubules can act as spatiotemporal signal sensors to control cellular responses.
dlvr.it
