Calcium can mobilize and activate myosin-VI.

ABSTRACT: The ability to coordinate the timing of motor protein activation lies at the center of a wide range of cellular motile processes including endocytosis, cell division, and cancer cell migration. We show that calcium dramatically alters the conformation and activity of the myosin-VI motor implicated in pivotal steps of these processes. We resolved the change in motor conformation and in structural flexibility using single particle analysis of electron microscopic data and identified interacting domains using fluorescence spectroscopy. We discovered that calcium binding to calmodulin increases the binding affinity by a factor of 2,500 for a bipartite binding site on myosin-VI. The ability of calcium-calmodulin to seek out and bridge between binding site components directs a major rearrangemen

SUBMITTER: Batters C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4780617 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature