title: Interplay between velocity and travel distance of kinesin-based transport in the presence of tau.
abstract: Although the disease-relevant microtubule-associated protein tau is known to severely inhibit kinesin-based transport in vitro, the potential mechanisms for reversing this detrimental effect to maintain healthy transport in cells remain unknown. Here we report the unambiguous upregulation of multiple-kinesin travel distance despite the presence of tau, via decreased single-kinesin velocity. Interestingly, the presence of tau also modestly reduced cargo velocity in multiple-kinesin transport, and our stochastic simulations indicate that the tau-mediated reduction in single-kinesin travel underlies this observation. Taken together, our observations highlight a nontrivial interplay between velocity and travel distance for kinesin transport, and suggest that single-kinesin velocity is a promising experimental handle for tuning the effect of tau on multiple-kinesin travel distance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, School of Natural Sciences, University of California, Merced, California. Electronic address: jing.xu@ucmerced.edu.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Maryse
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lapierre-Landry
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nemec
mesh_terms: D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000378:metabolism; D001692:Biological Transport; D006801:Humans; D016547:Kinesins / Q000378:metabolism*; D007700:Kinetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D016875:tau Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D016875:tau Proteins; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate; D016547:Kinesins