Issue 9, 2008

Setting up roadblocks for kinesin-1: mechanism for the selective speed control of cargo carrying microtubules

Abstract

Motor-driven cytoskeletal filaments are versatile transport platforms for nanosized cargo in molecular sorting and nano-assembly devices. However, because cargo and motors share the filament lattice as a common substrate for their activity, it is important to understand the influence of cargo-loading on transport properties. By performing single-molecule stepping assays on biotinylated microtubules we found that individual kinesin-1 motors frequently stopped upon encounters with attached streptavidin molecules. Consequently, we attribute the deceleration of cargo-laden microtubules in gliding assays to an obstruction of kinesin-1 paths on the microtubule lattice rather than to ‘frictional’ cargo-surface interactions. We propose to apply this obstacle-caused slow-down of gliding microtubules in a novel molecular detection scheme: Using a mixture of two distinct microtubule populations that each bind a different kind of protein, the presence of these proteins can be detected via speed changes in the respective microtubule populations.

Graphical abstract: Setting up roadblocks for kinesin-1: mechanism for the selective speed control of cargo carrying microtubules

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Mar 2008
Accepted
03 Jul 2008
First published
30 Jul 2008

Lab Chip, 2008,8, 1441-1447

Setting up roadblocks for kinesin-1: mechanism for the selective speed control of cargo carrying microtubules

T. Korten and S. Diez, Lab Chip, 2008, 8, 1441 DOI: 10.1039/B803585G

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