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Engineering Approaches to Biomolecular Motors: From in vitro to in vivo Poster Abstracts
44
11-POS
Board 11
Compression Stress Induced Buckling of Microtubule and It’s Effect on Kinesin-based
Cargo Transportation in vitro
Akira Kakugo
, Arif Md. Rashedul Kabir, Tanjina Afrin, Daisuke Inoue, Kazuki Sada.
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.
Microtubule (MT) and associated motor proteins play a key role in intracellular transport which
is crucial to survival of living organisms. Although MT is the most rigid component of
cytoskeleton, in cell it is often subjected to compression stress and undergo mecanical
deformation manifested by buckling. MT buckling may interrupt the intracellular transport which
has been suspected to be linked to neurodegenerative diseases. However, the buckling
mechanism of MT and the effect of buckled MT track on the motor protein-based cargo
transportation is yet to be understood. In this work, we have demonstrated compression stress
induced mechanical deformation of MTs in vitro on a two-dimentional elastic medium and
investigated the role of compression strain, strain rate, and interaction of MT with the elastic
medium on the MT deformation. Compression strain resulted in MT buckling, extent of which is
dependent on applied strain, although compression rate has no substantial effect on the buckling
of MTs. Most importantly, the interaction between the MT and the elastic medium is found to
play the key role in determining the buckling mode of MTs. By monitoring the kinesin driven
transportation along the buckled MTs, we investigated the role of MT buckling on the cargo
transportation. Velocity of kinesin-based cargo transportation was found to be decelerated along
the buckled MTs which suggests that MT buckling plays an important role in the interruption of
kinesin driven cargo transport. This work might help understand the buckling mechanism of MTs
and the connection of MT buckling to kinesin driven cargo transportation in cells.