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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Characterizing the Composition of Molecular Motors on Moving Axonal Cargo Using "Cargo Mapping" Analysis
Published on: October 30, 2014
Nucleotide switches in molecular motors: structural analysis of kinesins and myosins
1Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, 513 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
Abstract:
Recent breakthroughs in the structural biology of cytoskeletal motor proteins show that two distinct families of motors--kinesins and myosins - use a similar mechanism of conformational switching for converting small structural changes in their nucleotide-binding sites into larger movements to provide force generation and motion. This mechanism is found to be similar to that employed by G proteins, the well-known molecular switches that regulate protein-protein interactions in many biological systems.
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