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Motor proteins

Directing direction

Nature volume 406, pages 839–840 (2000)Cite this article

Molecular motors are essential to the life of a cell, working as they do to transport cargoes of cellular components to their correct destinations. Motor proteins always move along linear tracks in a specific direction, which is dictated by something intrinsic to the protein itself. But how is this direction determined? This question is really a facet of the overall problem of how these motors move. It is important for understanding both their design principles and the more general issue of how motors organize cells.

A new and fascinating episode in the exploration of motor mechanism unfolds on page 913 of this issue1, where Endow and Higuchi describe a set of mutations of single amino acids in a microtubule motor called ncd. Like other members of the kinesin motor family, this motor is powered by adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and carries its cargo along microtubule tracks (myosin motors, by contrast, move along actin filaments). When pinned to a surface, such as glass, these motors can move microtubules across the surface. The effects of the mutations in ncd described by Endow and Higuchi are, to say the least, bewildering. When coated onto glass, the mutant motors vigorously and sustainedly shuttle microtubules first one way and then the other. The motors on the glass surface will even break the microtubules, and slide the two pieces off in opposite directions. The mind reels: how can the same motor molecule produce forceful progress in two opposite directions?

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Figure 1: What determines the direction in which motor proteins move?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Molecular Motors Group, Marie Curie Research Institute, The Chart, Oxted, RH8 0TL, Surrey, UK

    R. A. Cross

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  1. R. A. Cross
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Correspondence to R. A. Cross.

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Cross, R. Directing direction. Nature 406, 839–840 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35022686

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