Dynein-Microtubule Interactions

Abstract

Vale and his colleagues (1989) devised a method of attaching single dynein molecules to a substrate and observing the motion of microtubules. In one series of experiments they inhibited the enzymatic activity of the dynein with vanadate. By fitting a Gaussian to this data, they obtained the diffusion constants shown in Table 1. However, according to the theoretical formulas for longitudinal and transverse diffusion of a cylinder these diffusion constants should be much larger. (The longitudinal and transverse diffusion coefficients are given by the following expressions: D _L = kTln(2h/r)/2πηL and D _T = kTln(2h/r)/4πηL (Brennen and Winet, 1977)). This discrepancy suggests two models for the interaction.