Motor protein tracks

Analysing the 3D movement of MKLP1 motors, Maruyama et al. find that dimeric C. elegans MKLP1 drives a left-handed helical motion around the microtubule with minimum protofilament switching to the right side whereas less persistent motions are driven by monomers or by heterotetramers with CYK4. These findings suggest how obstacles along crowded spindle microtubules may be avoided by CYK4 binding to MKLP1.

Tubulin with controlled posttranslational modifications can be purified by cycles of polymerization and depolymerization from cultured cells or single mouse brains for use in in vitro reconstitution assays.