International Journal of Biomedical Data Mining
Open Access

Abstract

Dynein is an important molecular motor which transports cargos along microtubules in the cell. Dysfunction of dynein leads to many serious diseases. Therefore, many efforts have been contributed to investigating the mechanisms of dynein’s motilities on microtubules. However, the large size of the dynein and microtubule system makes it extremely challenging to study the atomic details of the dynein’s motilities. Several computational approaches are developed and applied to study the dynein at different levels. Our simulations demonstrate that the long-range electrostatic interaction plays several essential roles during dynein’s motion. The electrostatic forces control dynein’s binding position and orientation in each step. The electrostatic binding energy funnel is found at the binding pocket, with the diameter of about 30 angstroms. Meanwhile, strong evidence indicates that the electrostatic binding affinity is also a key factor to determine dynein’s velocity and run length.

Author Info

Published: 30-Jul-2021

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.