Coupling of lever arm swing and biased Brownian motion in actomyosin.

ABSTRACT: An important unresolved problem associated with actomyosin motors is the role of Brownian motion in the process of force generation. On the basis of structural observations of myosins and actins, the widely held lever-arm hypothesis has been proposed, in which proteins are assumed to show sequential structural changes among observed and hypothesized structures to exert mechanical force. An alternative hypothesis, the Brownian motion hypothesis, has been supported by single-molecule experiments and emphasizes more on the roles of fluctuating protein movement. In this study, we address the long-standing controversy between the lever-arm hypothesis and the Brownian motion hypothesis through in silico observations of an actomyosin system. We study a system composed of myosin II and actin filam

SUBMITTER: Nie QM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3998885 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature