Article
Chemistry, Physical
Omar Munoz, Stefan Klumpp
Summary: This study proposes a model that extends the tug-of-war model by incorporating a mechanism of motor activation and inactivation. The model successfully explains some observations that are inconsistent with a simple tug-of-war scenario, including long unidirectional runs and a directional memory after unbinding from the filament.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Kewei Xie, Qian Wang
Summary: This study reveals the counterintuitive cooperation phenomenon among motor proteins in intracellular transport and verifies the accuracy of the model. The results indicate that cooperation can significantly increase the transport distance, rationalizing the choice of bidirectional transport in evolution. Furthermore, the study derives the exact analytical solution for the transport distance.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Saskia Schattner, Jan Schattner, Fabian Munder, Eva Hoeppe, Wilhelm J. Walter
Summary: In Arabidopsis thaliana, the transport of sperm cells involves sequential forward and backward movements with pauses, but occasional germ unit disassembly shows that sperm cells can independently move and still follow the same bidirectional movement pattern. The net movement of sperm cells results from longer and faster runs towards the pollen tube apex, which can be attributed to kinesins with calponin homology domain (KCH). This subgroup of the kinesin-14 family actively links actin filaments and microtubules, leading to a tug-of-war model that reproduces characteristic sperm cell movement in pollen tubes.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2021)
Review
Cell Biology
Sydney E. Cason, Erika L. F. Holzbaur
Summary: The active transport of organelles and other cargos along the axon is essential for maintaining neuronal health and function. However, the complex regulatory mechanisms involved in this process are still not fully understood. This review discusses the current understanding of motor regulation in axonal transport and explores how regulatory proteins affect the activity of dynein or kinesin motors. The specific mechanisms that regulate motor activity during organelle trafficking in the axon are also highlighted.
NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Valerie Siahaan, Ruensern Tan, Tereza Humhalova, Lenka Libusova, Samuel E. Lacey, Tracy Tan, Mariah Dacy, Kassandra M. Ori-McKenney, Richard J. McKenney, Marcus Braun, Zdenek Lansky
Summary: Tau and MAP2 can form envelopes on microtubules by altering lattice spacing, providing a molecular basis for spatial regulation of microtubule-based processes. Envelopes can affect the activity of other MAPs and motor proteins on microtubules.
NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Amrita Mandal, Hiu-Tung C. Wong, Katherine Pinter, Natalie Mosqueda, Alisha Beirl, Richa Madan Lomash, Sehoon Won, Katie S. Kindt, Catherine M. Drerup
Summary: Research shows that retrograde mitochondrial transport plays a crucial role in maintaining the homeostatic distribution of mitochondria in neurons, and disrupting this process can lead to accumulation of aged organelles in axon terminals and loss of mitochondria in the cell body.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Biology
Allison M. Gicking, Tzu-Chen Ma, Qingzhou Feng, Rui Jiang, Somayesadat Badieyan, Michael A. Cianfrocco, William O. Hancock
Summary: The study shows that kinesin-2 and -3 motors, despite being more sensitive to load, can effectively resist hindering loads generated by the dynein complex under experimental conditions; the similar performance between the three kinesin transport families highlights the critical role of motor kinetics in regulating the speed and directionality of cargo transport in cells.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Giulia Villari, Noemi Gioelli, Donatella Valdembri, Guido Serini
Summary: Cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a crucial role in the development, functioning, and repair of metazoans. Disruption of this adhesion can lead to various diseases. Integrins, as major ECM receptors, are involved in the transportation and positioning process of the plasma membrane. Microtubules and associated motors play a key role in driving vesicular transport and maintaining the asymmetric adhesion between cells and ECM, influencing the establishment of cell polarity.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Paulomi Sanghavi, Pankaj Kumar, Ankit Roy, M. S. Madhusudhan, Roop Mallik
Summary: Disrupting the interactions between dynactin and dynein or microtubules impacts dynein's behavior on microtubules and its ability to generate force. The dynactin-microtubule link is shown to be crucial for dynein's persistence against load, shedding light on dynein dysfunction.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xiangyu Fan, Richard J. McKenney
Summary: This study reveals the crucial role of a specialized kinesin tail domain in directing motor transport along specific microtubule tracks. The tail domain affects the initial motor-microtubule interaction and the processive motility, and its effect is enhanced when the motor domain is in the ADP state.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Cell Biology
Rongde Qiu, Jun Zhang, Xin Xiang
Summary: The autoinhibition of kinesin-1 plays an important role in dynein-mediated early endosome transport, but does not affect dynein accumulation or kinesin-1-mediated vesicle transport.
JOURNAL OF CELL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biophysics
Xiaodong Cheng, Kuangcai Chen, Bin Dong, Seth L. Filbrun, Gufeng Wang, Ning Fang
Summary: A bifocal parallax single-particle tracking method has been developed to resolve coordinated biomolecular interactions in complex living cell environments in real time. This method allows for full-range azimuth angle and 3D displacement of cargo in the cell cytoskeleton, revealing new interactions and providing insights into the dynamics of cargo-motor-track interactions in different types of microtubule intersections.
BIOPHYSICAL JOURNAL
(2021)
Review
Cell Biology
Marlieke L. M. Jongsma, Nina Bakker, Jacques Neefjes
Summary: The endosomal system coordinates the transport of substances within cells, and its motion is regulated by microtubule-based motor proteins. These interactions determine the mobility of the endosomes.
JOURNAL OF CELL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Lucia Cassella, Anne Ephrussi
Summary: In this study, the authors use spatial transcriptomics to identify localized RNAs in the Drosophila follicular epithelium and analyze the mechanisms underlying their localization. They find that apical RNA localization is mediated by the dynein/BicD/Egl machinery, while basally-targeted RNAs require kinesin-1. They also discover a non-canonical, translation- and dynein-dependent mechanism for the apical localization of a subgroup of dynein-activating adaptor-encoding RNAs.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Mengjie Sun, Mingkang Jia, He Ren, Biying Yang, Wangfei Chi, Guangwei Xin, Qing Jiang, Chuanmao Zhang
Summary: In this study, it was shown that NuMA undergoes liquid-liquid phase separation during mitotic entry, condensing on spindle poles and enriching critical components to promote spindle assembly.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)