cytoskeleton math question

At 1.4 mg/ml pure tubulin, microtubes grow at a rate of 2 Um/min. At this growth rate how many alpha beta dimers (8 nm in length) are added to the ends of a microtubule each second?

Originally posted by wormer
At 1.4 mg/ml pure tubulin, microtubes grow at a rate of 2 Um/min. At this growth rate how many alpha beta dimers (8 nm in length) are added to the ends of a microtubule each second?

Originally posted by DeepThought
Assuming by Um you mean a micron that's 2000 nm/minute. Each monomer is 8nm long so we have 250 dimers per minute. Divide by 60 to get dimers per second 250/60 = 4.1666....