4hna

Publication Abstract from PubMed

The typical function of kinesins is to transport cargo along microtubules. Binding of ATP to microtubule-attached motile kinesins leads to cargo displacement. To better understand the nature of the conformational changes that lead to the power stroke that moves a kinesin's load along a microtubule, we determined the X-ray structure of human kinesin-1 bound to alphabeta-tubulin. The structure defines the mechanism of microtubule-stimulated ATP hydrolysis, which releases the kinesin motor domain from microtubules. It also reveals the structural linkages that connect the ATP nucleotide to the kinesin neck linker, a 15-amino acid segment C terminal to the catalytic core of the motor domain, to result in the power stroke. ATP binding to the microtubule-bound kinesin favors neck-linker docking. This biases the attachment of kinesin's second head in the direction of the movement, thus initiating each of the steps taken.

Structure of a kinesin-tubulin complex and implications for kinesin motility.,Gigant B, Wang W, Dreier B, Jiang Q, Pecqueur L, Pluckthun A, Wang C, Knossow M Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2013 Aug;20(8):1001-7. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.2624. Epub 2013 Jul, 21. PMID:23872990^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.