Cargo surface fluidity can reduce inter-motor mechanical interference, promote load-sharing and enhance processivity in teams of molecular motors.

ABSTRACT: In cells, multiple molecular motors work together as teams to carry cargoes such as vesicles and organelles over long distances to their destinations by stepping along a network of cytoskeletal filaments. How motors that typically mechanically interfere with each other, work together as teams is unclear. Here we explored the possibility that purely physical mechanisms, such as cargo surface fluidity, may potentially enhance teamwork, both at the single motor and cargo level. To explore these mechanisms, we developed a three dimensional simulation of cargo transport along microtubules by teams of kinesin-1 motors. We accounted for cargo membrane fluidity by explicitly simulating the Brownian dynamics of motors on the cargo surface and considered both the load and ATP dependence of single mo

SUBMITTER: Sarpangala N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9212169 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature