title: The mitotic kinesin CENP-E is a processive transport motor.
abstract: In vivo studies suggest that centromeric protein E (CENP-E), a kinesin-7 family member, plays a key role in the movement of chromosomes toward the metaphase plate during mitosis. How CENP-E accomplishes this crucial task, however, is not clear. Here we present single-molecule measurements of CENP-E that demonstrate that this motor moves processively toward the plus end of microtubules, with an average run length of 2.6 +/- 0.2 mum, in a hand-over-hand fashion, taking 8-nm steps with a stall force of 6 +/- 0.1 pN. The ATP dependence of motor velocity obeys Michaelis-Menten kinetics with K(M,ATP) = 35 +/- 5 muM. All of these features are remarkably similar to those for kinesin-1-a highly processive transport motor. We, therefore, propose that CENP-E transports chromosomes in a manner analogous to how kinesin-1 transports cytoplasmic vesicles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Hasan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yardimci
authors.forename: Marilyn
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Duffelen
authors.forename: Yinghui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.forename: Steven S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Rosenfeld
authors.forename: Paul R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Selvin
mesh_terms: D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D002868:Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D016547:Kinesins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D007700:Kinetics; D008870:Microtubules / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D008938:Mitosis; D014981:Xenopus
chemical_list: D002868:Chromosomal Proteins, Non-Histone; C068688:centromere protein E; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate; D016547:Kinesins