복잡한 환경에서 키네신 협동의 거동

As many diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, have been linked to the defective functioning of motor proteins in cell transport systems, understanding the intricacies of how motor proteins work in their native crowded cell environments is essential to understanding what goes wrong when they function incorrectly. Molecular motors are specialized proteins that bind to a variety of organelles, referred to as cell cargo, and transport them along microtubule filaments (structural proteins commonly referred to as the highway of the cell). Motor proteins often work in groups, binding to one cargo and inching together along the filament's path in the cell.

Motor proteins have been isolated from cells and studied in a laboratory setting, but this is the first time that cargo carried by motor proteins have been studied both in their native cell and in a setting that imitates the crowded cellular environment.

Utilizing the laser light of optical tweezers to probe the movement of single motors and groups of motors, it was found that in more crowded environments, motors were more likely to fall off the filament when opposed. A group of motors would therefore be set-back each time a singular motor fell from the guideway. Even though groups of motors are shown to slow down in native cell environments, they are commonly used to carry cargo over long distances and overcome hindrances they face in a crowded cell by sharing the load, which singular motors cannot do.

reference

Macromolecular crowding acts as a physical regulator of intracellular transport, Nature Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-020-0957-y , www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-0957-y