A novel split kinesin assay identifies motor proteins that interact with distinct vesicle populations

作者:Jenkins Brian; Decker Helena; Bentley Marvin; Luisi Julie; Banker Gary*
来源:The Journal of Cell Biology, 2012, 198(4): 749-761.
DOI:10.1083/jcb.201205070

摘要

Identifying the kinesin motors that interact with different vesicle populations is a longstanding and challenging problem with implications for many aspects of cell biology. Here we introduce a new live-cell assay to assess kinesin-vesicle interactions and use it to identify kinesins that bind to vesicles undergoing dendrite-selective transport in cultured hippocampal neurons. We prepared a library of %26quot;split kinesins,%26quot; comprising an axon-selective kinesin motor domain and a series of kinesin tail domains that can attach to their native vesicles; when the split kinesins were assembled by chemical dimerization, bound vesicles were misdirected into the axon. This method provided highly specific results, showing that three Kinesin-3 family members-KIF1A, KIF13A, and KIF13B-interacted with dendritic vesicle populations. This experimental paradigm allows a systematic approach to evaluate motor-vesicle interactions in living cells.

  • 出版日期2012-8-20