Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 1: Molecular Motors
BP 1.2: Talk
Monday, March 31, 2014, 10:00–10:15, HÜL 386
Microtubule rotations reveal the 3D stepping trajectories of motor proteins on microtubule lattices — •Aniruddha Mitra1, Felix Ruhnow1, and Stefan Diez1,2 — 1B CUBE, Dresden, Germany — 2MPI-CBG, Dresden, Germany
Microtubules consist of about 13 protofilaments which act as tracks for motor proteins. It is interesting to know, whether processive motors step strictly along one of these tracks or whether they are able to switch between the tracks. We recently performed in vitro gliding motility assays on surfaces coated with kinesin-1 and kinesin-8 motor proteins and measured the rotations of microtubules around their longitudinal axis using quantum dots in combination with fluorescence-interference contrast (FLIC) microscopy and 2D nanometer tracking. We found that the cargo carrying motor kinesin-1 follows a single protofilament, while the highly processive microtubule-depolymerizing motor kinesin-8, does switch tracks with a bias towards the left. Because the attached quantum dots might interfere with the microtubule rotations, we recently devised a novel quantum-dot free method to obtain microtubule rotation data.