A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has determined the basic structural organization of a molecular motor that hauls cargoes and performs other critical functions within ...

Intracellular protein aggregation is a common theme in neurodegenerative disease. The formation of aggregates is blamed on protein overproduction, a failure of clearance, or both. Score one for the ...

Nearly 50 years after the discovery of the walking molecular motor dynein, researchers have finally solved the first X-ray crystal structure of its massive motor domain. The milestone will permit ...

In summary, we highlight three key findings: the priming recovery stroke is mainly achieved by rotation of the head domain with respect to the more-or-less stationary linker, rather than shifting of ...

Processivity, the ability of single molecules to move continuously along a track, is a fundamental requirement of cargo-transporting molecular motors. Here, we investigate how cytoplasmic dynein, a ...

Our cells rely on microscopic highways and specialized protein vehicles to move everything—from positioning organelles to carting protein instructions to disposing of cellular garbage. These highways ...

Researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which a protein facilitates the spread of breast cancer cells from the primary tumor into healthy tissue. The discovery not only improves our understanding ...

A mechanism of dynein-powered metastatic locomotion has been identified using soft tissue models, revealing a new clinical target for breast cancer treatment. New research led by Penn State (PA, USA) ...

A research team led by Masahide Kikkawa, a professor of the University of Tokyo, established zebrafish mutants of all four PIH-protein genes and solved the structures of axonemal dyneins in mutant ...

What is the dynein-dynactin complex and where is it found? What functions is this molecular motor thought to perform within cells? This is a macromolecular assembly is made up of two components, ...