Cardiac and skeletal myosin assembled in the muscle lattice power contraction by transducing ATP free energy into the mechanical work of moving actin. Myosin catalytic/lever-arm domains comprise the transduction/mechanical coupling machinery that move actin by lever-arm rotation. In vivo, myosin is crowded and constrained by the fiber lattice as side chains are mutated and otherwise modified un...

Myosin VI is an unconventional motor protein with unusual motility properties such as its direction of motion and path on actin and a large stride relative to its short lever arms. To understand these features, the rotational dynamics of the lever arm were studied by single-molecule polarized total internal reflection fluorescence (polTIRF) microscopy during processive motility of myosin VI alo...

creep phenomenon in rock engineering plays a key role in development of underground spaces as they must be stable enough for a long period of time. current research involved designing and manufacturing of a new creep testing machine. the equipment is capable to perform simultaneous light-duty creep tests on more than one cylindrical rock samples at a very low cost.to evaluate the equipment’s pe...

We present a mechanochemical model for myosin V, a two-headed processive motor protein. We derive the properties of a dimer from those of an individual head, which we model both with a four-state cycle (detached; attached with ADP.Pi; attached with ADP; and attached without nucleotide) and alternatively with a five-state cycle (where the powerstroke is not tightly coupled to the phosphate relea...

C ellular motors are fascinating machines that function by undergoing successive conformational changes that require joints in their structure. Where these are located is particularly critical for molecular motors that produce force with relatively rigid lever arms, such as myosins (1). A long-standing paradox in myosin function may finally be understood from structural insights provided by Coh...

Myosin V is a two-headed molecular motor that binds six light chains per heavy chain, which creates unusually long lever arms. This motor moves processively along its actin track in discrete 36-nm steps. Our model is that one head of the two-headed myosin V tightly binds to actin and swings its long lever arm through a large angle, providing a stroke. We created single-headed constructs with di...

We address the controversial hot question concerning the validity of the loose-coupling versus the lever-arm models in the actomyosin dynamics by re-interpreting and extending the washboard potential model proposed by some of us in a previous paper. In the new theory, a loose-coupling mechanism co-exists with the deterministic lever-arm model. The synergetic action of a random component, origin...

Myosin V is a vesicle transporter that unidirectionally walks along cytoskeletal actin filaments by converting the chemical energy of ATP into mechanical work. Recently, it was found that myosin V force generation is a composition of two processes: a lever-arm swing, which involves a conformational change in the myosin molecule, and a Brownian search-and-catch, which involves a diffusive "searc...