N-Terminal Kinesins: Many and Various

Interhead tension determines processivity across diverse N-terminal kinesins.

Consistent with their diverse intracellular roles, the processivity of N-terminal kinesin motors varies considerably between different families. Kinetics experiments on isolated motor domains suggest that differences in processivity result from differences in the underlying biochemistry of the catalytic heads. However, the length of the flexible neck linker domain also varies from 14 to 18 resi...

One axon, many kinesins: What's the logic?

A large number of membrane-bounded organelles, protein complexes, and mRNAs are transported along microtubules to different locations within the neuronal axon. Axonal transport in the anterograde direction is carried out by members of a superfamily of specialized motor proteins, the kinesins. All kinesins contain a conserved motor domain that hydrolyses ATP to generate movement along microtubul...

Dynamics of heterodimeric kinesins and cooperation of kinesins

Using the model for the processive movement of a dimeric kinesin we proposed before, we study the dynamics of a number of mutant homodimeric and heterodimeric kinesins that were constructed by Kaseda et al. (Kaseda, K., Higuchi, H. & Hirose, K. (2002) PNAS 99, 16058–16063). The theoretical results of ATPase rate per head, moving velocity, and stall force of the motors show good agreement with t...

Cytosolic Peptide Stability to Antigen N-Terminal Dibasic Peptides: Coupling Cutting Edge: HLA-B27 Acquires Many

Microtubule-regulating kinesins

How do they reproduce? Unlike many other starfish, the general body surface of crown-of-thorns starfish is soft and flexible, which enables it to swell as it develops huge gonads. Fecundity is obviously related to size, but, as an example, a 40 cm diameter crown-of-thorns starfish may commit about 45% of its total body energy to reproduction and shed an astonishing 50 million eggs. Like many ma...