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Updated: Nov 6, 2025

Production of Dynein and Kinesin Motor Ensembles on DNA Origami Nanostructures for Single Molecule Observation
Published on: October 15, 2019
Structure and Mechanics of Dynein Motors
John T Canty1, Ruensern Tan2, Emre Kusakci1
1Biophysics Graduate Group, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA;
Abstract:
Dyneins make up a family of AAA+ motors that move toward the minus end of microtubules. Cytoplasmic dynein is responsible for transporting intracellular cargos in interphase cells and mediating spindle assembly and chromosome positioning during cell division. Other dynein isoforms transport cargos in cilia and power ciliary beating. Dyneins were the least studied of the cytoskeletal motors due to challenges in the reconstitution of active dynein complexes in vitro and the scarcity of high-resolution methods for in-depth structural and biophysical characterization of these motors. These challenges have been recently addressed, and there have been major advances in our understanding of the activation, mechanism, and regulation of dyneins. This review synthesizes the results of structural and biophysical studies for each class of dynein motors. We highlight several outstanding questions about the regulation of bidirectional transport along microtubules and the mechanisms that sustain self-coordinated oscillations within motile cilia.
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