Tubulin alpha-3 chain (TUBA3) is a 450-residue protein from Bos taurus. This is its AlphaFold structure prediction, created 1 Aug 2025. UniProt accession: Q32KN8.
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The mean pLDDT of this model is 91.8 (very high overall). pLDDT is AlphaFold's per-residue confidence score from 0 to 100. In MolViewer, choose the B-factor color scheme to color the model by pLDDT, because AlphaFold stores it in the B-factor column.
| pLDDT band | Meaning | Share of residues |
|---|---|---|
| Above 90 | Very high: backbone and side chains are usually accurate | 82% |
| 70 to 90 | Confident: backbone generally right | 12% |
| 50 to 70 | Low: treat with caution | 4% |
| Below 50 | Very low: often disordered regions | 2% |
What pLDDT means and how to read it
Tubulin is the major constituent of microtubules, a cylinder consisting of laterally associated linear protofilaments composed of alpha- and beta-tubulin heterodimers (PubMed:2207090, PubMed:6504138, PubMed:7704569). Microtubules grow by the addition of GTP-tubulin dimers to the microtubule end, where a stabilizing cap forms. Below the cap, tubulin dimers are in GDP-bound state, owing to GTPase activity of alpha-tubulin (PubMed:2207090, PubMed:6504138, PubMed:7704569)
Dimer of alpha and beta chains (PubMed:2207090, PubMed:6504138, PubMed:7704569). A typical microtubule is a hollow water-filled tube with an outer diameter of 25 nm and an inner diameter of 15 nM. Alpha-beta heterodimers associate head-to-tail to form protofilaments running lengthwise along the microtubule wall with the beta-tubulin subunit facing the microtubule plus end conferring a structural…
Cytoplasm, cytoskeleton
Compare the prediction with experimentally determined structures of the same protein:
| PDB ID | Method | Resolution | Chains and residues |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8OU0 | EM | 3.5 Å | A=1-450 |
| 8OTZ | EM | 3.6 Å | AA/AC/AE/AG/AI/AK/AM/BA/BC/BE/BG/BI/BK/BM/CA/CC/CE/CG/CI/CK/CM/DA/DC/DE/DG/DI/DK/DM/EC/EE=1-450 |
| 9FQR | EM | 5.0 Å | AA/AC/AE/AG/AI/AK/AN/AR/BA/BC/BE/BG/BI/BK/Bt/Bw/CA/CC/CE/CG/CI/CK/DA/DC/DE/DG/DI/DK/DM/EC=1-450 |
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