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Molecular motors

Coordinated movement

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 6, pages 436–437 (2005)Cite this article

They used a technique known as FIONA (fluorescence imaging with one nanometre accuracy) to observe green-fluorescent-protein-labelled peroxisomes being moved by microtubule motors inside live Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells. This technique provides a 1.5-nm accuracy and a 1.1-msec time resolution (the latter is a 400-fold improvement on previous methods). They inhibited actomyosin-dependent movements to ensure that only microtubule motors were being observed, and used RNA interference to show that kinesin-1 and the dynein heavy chain move peroxisomes in these cells. They also verified that the effects of microtubule lattice movements on peroxisome transport were minimal — that is, the movements observed were related to motor-driven movement.

FIONA revealed a step size of ∼8 nm for kinesin-1 and the dynein heavy chain, which concurs with the results of in vitro assays. In addition, the step size remained constant. This indicates that there is no tug-of-war, which would cause the step size to decrease. Instead, it seems that the motors might be turned on and off, so that they don't pull the peroxisome simultaneously. Furthermore, the speed of the in vivo peroxisome movement indicates that, at any one time, several kinesins or dyneins (up to 11 in both cases) can work together to produce speeds that are 10 times greater than those seen in vitro. The faster movements have the same step size; the steps just occur with greater rapidity.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Kural, C. et al. Kinesin and dynein move a peroxisome in vivo: a tug-of-war or coordinated movement? Science 14 April 2005 (10.1126/science.1108408)

FURTHER READING

  1. Mallik, R. & Gross, S. P. Molecular motors: strategies to get along. Curr. Biol. 14, R971–R982 (2004)

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  1. Rachel Smallridge
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Smallridge, R. Coordinated movement. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 6, 436–437 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm1670

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