Becker's World of the Cell 9th Edition by Lewis Kleinsmith, Jeff Hardin, Gregory Paul Bertoni

Exercise 4

Stabilization and the Critical Concentration. Suppose you have determined the overall critical concentration for a sample of purified tubulin. Then you add a preparation of centrosomes (microtubule-organizing centers), which nucleate microtubules so that the minus end is bound to the centrosome and stabilized against disassembly. When you again determine the overall critical concentration, you find it is different. Explain why the overall critical concentration would change.