Microtubule Organization Is Essential for Maintaining Cellular Morphology and Function

Figure 2

Basic mechanisms of MT organization during the differentiation of neurons into axons or dendrites. In axons, MTs display uniform polarity orientation with their plus-ends out. This array is essential to drive cargo transport through the proximal-end to the distal-end by kinesins, whereas in dendrites, MTs are mixed polarity with half of their minus-ends pointing to the soma, which allows dynein motors to selectively transport cargoes across this mixed MT arrays.