Engineering Approaches to Biomolecular Motors

Engineering Approaches to Biomolecular Motors: From in vitro to in vivo Poster Abstracts

11-POS Board 11 Compression Stress Induced Buckling of Microtubule and It’s Effect on Kinesin-based Cargo Transportation in vitro Akira Kakugo , Arif Md. Rashedul Kabir, Tanjina Afrin, Daisuke Inoue, Kazuki Sada. Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Microtubule (MT) and associated motor proteins play a key role in intracellular transport which is crucial to survival of living organisms. Although MT is the most rigid component of cytoskeleton, in cell it is often subjected to compression stress and undergo mecanical deformation manifested by buckling. MT buckling may interrupt the intracellular transport which has been suspected to be linked to neurodegenerative diseases. However, the buckling mechanism of MT and the effect of buckled MT track on the motor protein-based cargo transportation is yet to be understood. In this work, we have demonstrated compression stress induced mechanical deformation of MTs in vitro on a two-dimentional elastic medium and investigated the role of compression strain, strain rate, and interaction of MT with the elastic medium on the MT deformation. Compression strain resulted in MT buckling, extent of which is dependent on applied strain, although compression rate has no substantial effect on the buckling of MTs. Most importantly, the interaction between the MT and the elastic medium is found to play the key role in determining the buckling mode of MTs. By monitoring the kinesin driven transportation along the buckled MTs, we investigated the role of MT buckling on the cargo transportation. Velocity of kinesin-based cargo transportation was found to be decelerated along the buckled MTs which suggests that MT buckling plays an important role in the interruption of kinesin driven cargo transport. This work might help understand the buckling mechanism of MTs and the connection of MT buckling to kinesin driven cargo transportation in cells.

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