Comparison of mechanisms of kinetochore capture with varying number of spindle microtubules

Abstract

The biophysical mechanisms of kinetochore capture by spindle microtubules within cells are stochastic processes with a moving target searched by multiple walkers inside a confined volume. We study and compare two such mechanisms: dynamic instability-driven search and capture, common in many eukaryotes, and angular diffusion of pivoted microtubules reported in fission yeast. Characteristic times associated with the rare events of capture scale as a power law with the microtubule number, and their comparison provides a physical basis for the selection of one mechanism over another.