Power Strokes in Molecular Motors: Predictive, Irrelevant, or Somewhere in Between?

ABSTRACT: For several decades, molecular motor directionality has been rationalized in terms of the free energy of molecular conformations visited before and after the motor takes a step, a so-called power stroke mechanism with analogues in macroscopic engines. Despite theoretical and experimental demonstrations of its flaws, the power stroke language is quite ingrained, and some communities still value power stroke intuition. By building a catalysis-driven motor into simulated numerical experiments, we here systematically report on how directionality responds when the motor is modified accordingly to power stroke intuition. We confirm that the power stroke mechanism generally does not predict motor directionality. Nevertheless, the simulations illustrate that the relative stability of molecular con

SUBMITTER: Penocchio E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11728019 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature