Kinesin motor density and dynamics in gliding microtubule motility  2019

Kinesin motors and their associated filaments, microtubules, are essential to many biological processes. The motor and filament system can be reconstituted in vitro with the surface-adhered motors transporting the filaments along the surface. In this format, the system has been used to study active self-assembly and to power microdevices or perform analyte detection. However, fundamental properties of the system, such as the spacing of the kinesin motors bound to the microtubule and the dynamics of binding, remain poorly understood.

the system is highly dynamic, with kinesin binding and unbinding along the length of the microtubule as it is transported along the surface.

Cytoskeletal motor proteins and their associated filaments play a vital role in many cellular processes, including mitosis and meiosis, actuation of cilia, and trafficking of cargo within cells

Despite its long history and widespread use, basic parameters of the gliding motility assay, for example how many kinesins are bound to and transport a microtubule, remain unclear.

The motors were observed to bind and unbind the microtubule in a highly dynamic fashion during transport, which has not been accounted for in prior theory or models of motility. As such, these data provide critical insights that may be used to further refine our understanding of microtubule transport.

there are still biological parallels, such as actuation of cilia, where a better understanding of kinesin cooperativity would be relevant.