Papers for Journal Club

The first two papers describe conformational changes that occur in dynein.  This is not a primary topic of the iBioSeminars lecture, but these are nice papers that explore another aspect of the dynein motor.  (These three papers also all appeared after the iBioSeminars lecture was taped).  They also illustrate three different approaches/techniques.  The Roberts et al. paper primarily uses electron microscopy to study conformational changes in the entire dynein motor domain.  The Carter et al. paper uses primarily X-ray crystallography to study the microtubule binding domain (and also functional studies to look at the role of the microtubule binding domain).  The Kon et al. paper is complementary to the Carter et al. study, as it uses crosslinking studies to test a model of how the affinity in the microtubule binding domain is regulated by the sliding of residues in an anti-parallel coiled coil.

Roberts, A.J., Numata, N., Walker, M.L., Kato, Y.S., Malkova, B., Kon, T., Ohkura, R., Arisaka, F., Knight, P.J., Sutoh, K., and Burgess, S.A.  2009. AAA+ Ring and linker swing mechanism in the dynein motor. Cell 136:485-95.

Kon, T., Imamula, K., Roberts, A.J., Ohkura, R., Knight, P.J., Gibbons, I.R., Burgess, S.A., and Sutoh, K. 2009. Helix sliding in the stalk coiled coil of dynein couples ATPase and microtubule binding. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 16:325-33.

Carter, A.P., Garbarino, J.E., Wilson-Kubalek, E.M., Shipley, W.E., Cho, C., Milligan, R.A., Vale, R.D., and Gibbons, I.R. 2008. Structure and functional role of dynein's microtubule-binding domain.  Science 322:1691-5.

These next two papers are the single molecule studies that are featured in the lecture.  The Reck-Peterson et al. paper describes single molecule fluorescence as a tool to understand dynein processivity and step sizes.  The Gennerich paper uses an optical trap to examine dynein force production and behavior of dynein stepping under load (in more depth than described in the iBioSeminar lecture).

Gennerich, A., Carter, A.P., Reck-Peterson, S.L., and Vale, R.D. 2007. Force-induced bidirectional stepping of cytoplasmic dynein. Cell 131:952-65.

Reck-Peterson, S.L., Yildiz, A., Carter, A.P., Gennerich, A., Zhang, N., and Vale, R.D. 2006. Single-molecule analysis of dynein processivity and stepping behavior. Cell 126:335-48.

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