Kinesins Lead Aging Microtubules to Catastrophe

The ability of growing microtubules to undergo catastrophes—abrupt switches from growth to shortening—is one of the key aspects of microtubule dynamics important for shaping cellular microtubule arrays. Gardner et al. show that catastrophes occur at a microtubule age-dependent rate and that depolymerizing kinesins can affect this process in fundamentally different ways.