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Molecular motors

Myosins move ahead of the pack

Nature Nanotechnology volume 9, pages 9–10 (2014)Cite this article

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An artificial motor protein with loosely coordinated subunits can travel at high speed and over long distances.

The researchers were able to create high-performance motors by modifying naturally occurring dimeric myosinVI and myosinXI proteins that, like many biological motors, possess two motor domains (heads) connected by a coiled-coiled stalk. The new myosin constructs incorporate two additional heads to enhance their binding affinity towards their filament tracks. The four heads were also linked together via flexible polypeptide elements to increase their diffusive freedom and to allow each head to bind the filament freely. These adaptations allowed the engineered myosin constructs to travel distances of several micrometres at velocities of up to 10 μm s−1.

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Figure 1: Strategies to enhance the performance of molecular motors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David S. Tsao and Michael R. Diehl are at the Department of Bioengineering and Chemistry of Rice University, Houston, Texas 77030, USA,

    David S. Tsao & Michael R. Diehl

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  1. David S. Tsao
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  2. Michael R. Diehl
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Correspondence to Michael R. Diehl.

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Tsao, D., Diehl, M. Myosins move ahead of the pack. Nature Nanotech 9, 9–10 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.298

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