Mechanical properties and characteristics of microtubules: A review

Abstract This review focuses on modeling techniques developed for prediction of mechanical properties and characterization of microtubules, polyatomic structures that contain billions of different types of atoms. The challenge of modeling mechanical properties of microtubules is to achieve both computational efficiency and accuracy. Various kinds of techniques have been adopted and created in practice. Atomistic simulation method is useful for simulation of atomic structures, however, because of computational limitations, it is not realistic to adopt it for modeling of long microtubules which involve billions of atoms. Classical continuum mechanics does not incorporate fundamental atomic interactions. Bridging-scale techniques are developed to address the problems in traditional macroscopic and microscopic modeling, which combine the intrinsic interatomic potential and continuum mechanical solution frameworks, hence possess merits in both atomic simulation and computational continuum mechanics. In view of the fast development in this research topic, this article provides a general review of the past and recent advances in mechanical properties and characterization of microtubules.