Tiny Kinesin-1 Molecular Motors Maneuver Cargo Through Complex 3-Dimensional Intracellular Highways

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Surprisingly, when challenged with a 3-dimensional microtubule intersection, kinesin-1 molecular motors are biased to maneuver their tiny vesicle cargoes straight through the intersection rather than turning even when the microtubule intersection acts as a physical barrier; a result like that of an unrelated molecular motor cargo transporter, myosin Va . Using computer simulations, we propose that these molecular motors share a fundamental mechanism for navigating cargoes through cytoskeletal highway intersections en route to their intracellular destination.

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By reconstituting a more realistic cargo (the liposome with a team of kinesins) at the lab bench and challenging that cargo with a realistic obstacle (a 3D intersection) created on a microscope slide, we made the surprising observation that kinesin-1 deals with intersections in the same manner as the unrelated actin-based transport motor myosin V. By combining in vitro reconstitutions with computer based mathematical simulations, we were able to understand more clearly how this result comes to pass, and even can visualize this by rendering the simulations into movies. This shows how powerful and fun interdisciplinary science can be.

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