Delineating cooperative responses of processive motors in living cells
Abstract
Although many vesicles and organelles are known to be transported by groups of interacting cytoskeletal motors, the precise impact of collective motor behaviors on intracellular transport and trafficking processes remains controversial. By engineering COS-7 cells to provide genetic control over the density of motors on, and the sizes of vesicles (peroxisomes), we performed systematic comparisons of the collective behaviors of kinesin and myosinVa motors. The responses of cargo velocities, run lengths, and position fluctuations to these parameters suggest that myosinVa motors can cooperate more productively than kinesins when transporting cargos as a team. This behavior is derived from the mechanochemical properties of these motors and suggests that the collective functions of motors like myosinV can be regulated more sensitively than those of kinesin.
- Publication:
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1313569111
- Bibcode:
- 2014PNAS..111E.334E