Photo: Mark Hanson at Mark Joseph Studios
A new paper published in Nature from the lab of MCB Associate Professor Ahmet Yildiz shows how the structure of dynein, a family of cytoskeletal motor proteins, determines its directionality. By engineering variants of dynein with altered stalk angles, the researchers uncover why all dyneins move toward only the minus end of a microtubule during cytoskeletal movement.
The research is a collaboration with scientists from the Medical Research Council in the UK and Istanbul Technical University.