Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 42: Cytoskeletal filaments (joint BP/CPP)

BP 42.2: Talk

Thursday, March 19, 2015, 10:00–10:15, H 1028

Molecular wear of microtubules propelled by surface-adhered kinesins — Emmanuel LP Dumont¹, Catherine Do², and •Henry Hess¹ — ¹Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA — ²Institute for Cancer Genetics, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York 10032, USA

Wear, the progressive loss of material from a body caused by contact and relative movement, is a major concern not only in engineering but also in biology. Advances in nanotechnology both enable the study of the origins of wear processes at the atomic and molecular scale and demand the prediction and control of wear in nanoscale systems. Here we discuss wear that occurs in an in vitro system consisting of microtubules gliding across a surface coated with kinesin-1 motor proteins, and that energetic considerations suggest a molecule-by-molecule removal of tubulin proteins. The rates of removal show a complex dependence on sliding velocity and kinesin density, which - in contrast to the friction behavior between microtubules and kinesin - cannot be explained by simple chemical reaction kinetics.