We have discovered and confirmed a new molecular mechanism for force generation in kinesin, one of the smallest processive biological motors. Our work is a close collaboration between theory and experiment with Prof. Wonmuk Hwang and Prof. Martin Karplus. The paper below details our proposed mechanism for the kinesin force generation step being driven by an unfolded to folded transition between an N-terminal cover strand and the neck-linker to form the cover neck bundle. This work has been published in Structure, see Hwang et al, here. We have directly tested this mechanism by generating kinesin mutants with specific changes in the cover strand and characterizing the force generation properties of these mutants. Our results show that force generation in kinesin requires cover neck bundle formation. This important test of the force generation mechanism has been published in PNAS, see Khalil et al. here.

See: Khalil et.al., PNAS 2008

See: Hwang et.al., Structure 2008