Molecular motors: Walking talking heads
نویسنده
چکیده
Small tension signals that pass between the two linked heads of kinesin allow the motor protein to coordinate its walking action. Two new studies suggest that certain members of the two other major families of motor proteins, the myosins and dyneins, can do the same thing.
منابع مشابه
Molecular motors: Kinesin’s dynamically dockable neck
Kinesin is a molecular walking machine with two identical motor heads connected to a coiled-coil tail. Details of the coordination mechanism, which causes kinesin to walk directionally, and the tracking mechanism, which guides each detaching head to its next site on the microtubule, are beginning to emerge.
متن کاملMolecular motors: Kinesin's string variable
A recent model suggests that the walking action of kinesin is due to a 13 residue 'fundamental engine' called the neck linker domain, which cyclically zips and unzips to the main part of the heads. New experiments confirm one prediction of the model: that crosslinking the neck linker to the head should block motility.
متن کاملKinesin: walking, crawling or sliding along?
Kinesins are microtubule-based motor proteins that are involved in cargo transport and mitosis. They are called "motors" because they convert chemical energy to mechanical energy (i.e. force and motion). They use the energy of ATP hydrolysis for their enzymatic processes by walking on microtubules. However, the mechanism underlying their motion has been unclear. Recently, conventional kinesin, ...
متن کاملEffects of Obstacles on the Dynamics of Kinesins, Including Velocity and Run Length, Predicted by a Model of Two Dimensional Motion
Kinesins are molecular motors which walk along microtubules by moving their heads to different binding sites. The motion of kinesin is realized by a conformational change in the structure of the kinesin molecule and by a diffusion of one of its two heads. In this study, a novel model is developed to account for the 2D diffusion of kinesin heads to several neighboring binding sites (near the sur...
متن کاملThermodynamics and kinetics of molecular motors.
Molecular motors are first and foremost molecules, governed by the laws of chemistry rather than of mechanics. The dynamical behavior of motors based on chemical principles can be described as a random walk on a network of states. A key insight is that any molecular motor in solution explores all possible motions and configurations at thermodynamic equilibrium. By using input energy and chemica...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
- Current Biology
دوره 9 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 1999