Processivity of dimeric kinesin-1 molecular motors

Kinesin-1 is a homodimeric motor protein that can move along microtubule filaments by hydrolyzing ATP with a high processivity. How the two motor domains are coordinated to achieve such high processivity is not clear. To address this issue, we computationally studied the run length of the dimer with our proposed model. The computational data quantitatively reproduced the puzzling experimental data, including the dramatically asymmetric character of the run length with respect to the direction of external load acting on the coiled-coil stalk, the enhancement of the run length by addition of phosphate, and the contrary features of the run length for different types of kinesin-1 with extensions of their neck linkers compared with those without extension of the neck linker. The computational data on other aspects of the movement dynamics such as velocity and durations of one-head-bound and two-head-bound states in a mechanochemical coupling cycle were also in quantitative agreement with the available experimental data. Moreover, predicted results are provided on dependence of the run length upon external load acting on one head of the dimer, which can be easily tested in the future using single-molecule optical trapping assays.