depolymerize
/diːˈpɒlɪmərʌɪz
/(also depolymerise)
verb [with object] Chemistry
1Break (a polymer) down into monomers or other smaller units.The largest shift in molecular weight occurred during the melting stage, but matrix glycans remained at moderately high molecular weight even in overripe fruit, and were not depolymerized to small size....
- Second, the separate filaments depolymerize into monomers.
- Eleven mutants whose decline in viability was fully or partly suppressed by depolymerizing the spindle were retained.
1.1 [no object] Undergo the process of depolymerization: the ideal disposable polymer would depolymerize naturally...
- Others have suggested that cofilin depolymerizes by severing filaments and capping their barbed ends.
- This suggests that the distribution of minus ends where microtubules depolymerize and thus, the pole itself, extends over a large area.
- Says Nogales, ‘That the rings remain attached to the microtubule end as it depolymerizes, is a most ingenious mechanism to move chromosome to the two daughter cells during anaphase, without even requiring energy.’
Derivatives
depolymerization
- For example, tropomyosin, a coiled-coil protein that binds along the sides of actin filaments, inhibits the rate of depolymerization from the pointed end, without affecting elongation.
- The development of leatheriness showed a similar lack of polyuronide depolymerization, with no detectable depolymerization relative to pre-ripening and a greater arrest of depolymerization than in mealy fruit.
- The dynamics of actin polymerization and depolymerization in the absence of crosslinkers has been mathematically modeled by others, and was theoretically shown to yield a steady-state exponential length distribution.