9月25日，科睿唯安公佈了2025年度引文桂冠獎名單，美國普林斯頓大學 Omenn- Darling 生物工程研究所所長、工程學教授、化學與生物工程學教授 Clifford P. Brangwynne，德國馬克斯·普朗克分子細胞生物學與遺傳學研究所所長 Anthony A. Hyman 與美國德州大學西南醫學中心生物物理系傑出講席教授 Michael K. Rosen，因在 「發現相分離生物分子凝聚體在細胞生化組織中的作用」 研究領域的突出貢獻，共同獲得2025年度 化學領域引文桂冠獎。
Clifford Brangwynne 教授/圖源：Citation Laureates 官網
Clifford Brangwynne 教授2007年獲哈佛大學應用物理博士學位，導師為 David A. Weitz教授（哈佛大學物理系及工程和應用科學學院 Mallinckrodt 冠名教授，美國國家科學院院士、美國國家工程院院士、美國藝術與科學院院士，中國工程院外籍院士）。其博士論文題目為：Mechanics and dynamics of microtubule bending 。該論文全文收錄在ProQuest全球博碩士論文資料庫（ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global，簡稱PQDT Global） 中。以下是論文的相關資訊，讀者可點擊連結查閱論文。
摘要
The cytoskeleton of animal cells is a highly dynamic network of biopolymer filaments that forms a load-bearing scaffold within cells. Cytoskeletal filaments exhibit significant bending fluctuations that result from large, non-thermal forces, such as those arising from the activity of ATP-consuming molecular motors. Microtubules are an important component of this scaffold, and are involved in a broad range of biological processes, including cell migration, intracellular transport, and mitosis. However, the precise mechanical role of microtubules in cells, and the nature of fluctuating intracellular forces in general, remain poorly understood. Here, we carefully analyze the dynamics of microtubule bending to reveal the underlying forces. We implement a Fourier analysis technique to quantify the spatial- and temporal-dependence of microtubule bending fluctuations. We first study isolated microtubules in thermal equilibrium, both in aqueous buffer solution and embedded in an entangled in vitro network of purified actin filaments. The small thermal fluctuations we observe are in quantitative agreement with the theoretically predicted behavior. In contrast, for microtubules embedded in an in vitro actin network driven by myosin motors, stochastic motor forces, of order 10 pN, give rise to large bending fluctuations. Due to the surrounding elastic network, these fluctuations are particularly apparent on short length scales, and have surprisingly diffusive-like features resulting from the step-like relaxation dynamics of the motors. The spatial and temporal behavior of these in vitro, non-thermal microtubule bends are remarkably similar to the microtubule dynamics we observe in cells, and appear to reflect the same underlying physics. However, we also find that the instantaneous shapes of bent microtubules exhibit a surprisingly thermal-like distribution in cells, with an anomolously small persistence length of 30 μm, about 100 times smaller than in vitro. We show that this arises from non-thermal fluctuations that redirect the orientation of microtubule tips during growth, giving rise to a persistent random walk growth trajectory. The long wavelength bends that result are effectively frozen-in by the surrounding network, and the fluctuations are therefore non-ergodic. These findings suggest that the architecture of the microtubule network, as well as its mechanical response, are both intimately coupled to the fluctuating non-equilibrium activity of the composite cytoskeleton, and have important implications for the biophysical behavior of the cell.
論文連結：
https://www.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/docview/304850350
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global 簡介
ProQuest 是美國國會圖書館指定的收藏全美國博碩士論文的機構。 ProQuest 全球博碩士論文全文資料庫（ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global，簡稱 PQDT Global），收錄來自全球60多個國家/地區4100餘所大學的超過400萬篇博碩士學位論文全文及600萬篇文摘索引記錄。 內容覆蓋科學、工程學、經濟與管理科學、健康與醫學、歷史學、人文及社會科學等領域。
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