The processivity of kinesin-2 motors suggests diminished front-head gating.

ABSTRACT: Kinesin-2 motors, which are involved in intraflagellar transport and cargo transport along cytoplasmic microtubules, differ from motors in the canonical kinesin-1 family by having a heterodimeric rather than homodimeric structure and possessing a three amino acid insertion in their neck linker domain. To determine how these structural features alter the chemomechanical coupling in kinesin-2, we used single-molecule bead experiments to measure the processivity and velocity of mouse kinesin-2 heterodimer (KIF3A/B) and the engineered homodimers KIF3A/A and KIF3B/B and compared their behavior to Drosophila kinesin-1 heavy chain (KHC). Single-motor run lengths of kinesin-2 were 4-fold shorter than those of kinesin-1. Extending the kinesin-1 neck linker by three amino acids led to a similar redu

SUBMITTER: Muthukrishnan G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2730044 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature