Kinesin: walking, crawling or sliding along?

Kinesins are microtubule-based motor proteins that are involved in cargo transport and mitosis. They are called ‘motors’ because they convert chemical energy to mechanical energy (i.e. force and motion). They use the energy of ATP hydrolysis for their enzymatic processes by walking on microtubules....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Trends in cell biology 2005-02, Vol.15 (2), p.112-120
Main Authors: Yildiz, Ahmet, Selvin, Paul R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological Transport - physiology
Humans
Kinesin - chemistry
Kinesin - metabolism
Microtubules - metabolism
Models, Molecular
Organelles - metabolism
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Summary:Kinesins are microtubule-based motor proteins that are involved in cargo transport and mitosis. They are called ‘motors’ because they convert chemical energy to mechanical energy (i.e. force and motion). They use the energy of ATP hydrolysis for their enzymatic processes by walking on microtubules. However, the mechanism underlying their motion has been unclear. Recently, conventional kinesin, which was the first-identified member of the family, has been shown to walk by swapping its two heads in a ‘hand-over-hand’ mechanism. There is also experimental evidence supporting an asymmetric walking of kinesin in which two identical heads of the motor take alternate slow and fast steps. Other cargo-carrier and mitotic kinesins remain uninvestigated and are of great interest to biophysicists.
ISSN:0962-8924
1879-3088
DOI:10.1016/j.tcb.2004.12.007