Microtubule shuttles on kinesin-coated glass micro-wire tracks

Kyongwan Kim; Andrew L. Liao; Aurelien Sikora; Daniel Oliveira; Hikaru Nakazawa; Mitsuo Umetsu; Izumi Kumagai; Tadafumi Adschiri; Wonmuk Hwangb; Winfried Teizer

arXiv · 1402.4917

Microtubule shuttles on kinesin-coated glass micro-wire tracks

Kyongwan Kim·Andrew L. Liao·Aurelien Sikora·Daniel Oliveira·Hikaru Nakazawa·Mitsuo Umetsu·Izumi Kumagai·Tadafumi Adschiri·Wonmuk Hwangb·Winfried Teizer

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Abstract

Gliding of microtubule filaments on surfaces coated with the motor protein kinesin has potential applications for nano-scale devices. The ability to guide the gliding direction in three dimensions allows the fabrication of tracks of arbitrary geometry in space. Here, we achieve this by using kinesin-coated glass wires of micrometer diameter range. Unlike previous methods in which the guiding tracks are fixed on flat two-dimensional surfaces, the flexibility of glass wires in shape and size facilitates building in-vitro devices that have deformable tracks.

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Kyongwan Kim, Andrew L. Liao, Aurelien Sikora, Daniel Oliveira, Hikaru Nakazawa, Mitsuo Umetsu, Izumi Kumagai, Tadafumi Adschiri, Wonmuk Hwangb, Winfried Teizer. 2014-02-20. Microtubule shuttles on kinesin-coated glass micro-wire tracks. https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.4917

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