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In this study, we analyzed intracellular functions and motile properties of neck-linker (NL) variants of the bi-directional S. cerevisiae kinesin-5 motor, Cin8. We also examined - by modeling - the configuration of H-bonds during NL docking. Decreasing the number of stabilizing H-bonds resulted in partially functional variants, as long as a conserved backbone H-bond at the N-latch position (proposed to stabilize the docked conformation of the NL) remained intact. Elimination of this conserved H-bond resulted in production of a non-functional Cin8 variant. Surprisingly, additional H-bond stabilization of the N-latch position, generated by replacement of the NL of Cin8 by sequences of the plus-end directed kinesin-5 Eg5, also produced a nonfunctional variant. In that variant, a single replacement of N-latch asparagine with glycine, as present in Cin8, eliminated the additional H-bond stabilization and rescued the functional defects. We conclude that exact N-latch stabilization during NL docking is critical for the function of bi-directional kinesin-5 Cin8.

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The current study aimed to identify the potential clinical significance and molecular mechanisms of kinesin (KIF) family member genes in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) using genome­wide RNA sequencing (RNA­seq) datasets derived from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Clinical parameters and RNA­seq data of patients with LUAD from the TCGA database enabled the assessment of the clinical significance of KIF genes, while the potential mechanisms of their interactions in LUAD were investigated by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). A gene signature with potential prognostic value was constructed via a stepwise multivariable Cox analysis. In total, 23 KIF genes were identified to be differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the LUAD tumor and adjacent non­cancerous tissues. Of these, 8 differentially expressed KIF genes were strongly found to be strongly associated with the overall survival of patients with LUAD. Three of these genes were found to be able to be grouped as a potential prognostic gene signature. Patients with higher risk scores calculated using this gene signature were found to have a markedly higher risk of mortality (adjusted P=0.003; adjusted HR, 1.576; 95% CI, 1.166­2.129). Time­dependent receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that this prognostic signature was able to accurately predict patient prognosis with an area under curve of 0.636, 0.643,0.665, 0.670 and 0.593 for the 1­, 2­, 3­, 4­ and 5­year survival, respectively. This prognostic gene signature was identified as an independent risk factor for LUAD and was able to more accurately predict prognosis in comparison to other known clinical parameters, as shown via comprehensive survival analysis. GSEA enrichment revealed that that KIF14, KIF18B and KIF20A mediated basic cell physiology through the regulation of the cell cycle, DNA replication, and DNA repair biological processes and pathways. On the whole, the findings of this study identified 23 KIF genes that were DEGs between LUAD tumor and adjacent non­cancerous tissues. In total, 8 of these genes had the potential to function as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers in patients with LUAD.

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Cilia and flagella are microtubule-based antenna which are highly conserved among eukaryotes. In vertebrates, primary and motile cilia have evolved to exert several key functions during development and tissue homoeostasis. Ciliary dysfunction in humans causes a highly heterogeneous group of diseases called ciliopathies, a class of genetic multisystemic disorders primarily affecting kidney, skeleton, retina, lung and the central nervous system. Among key ciliary proteins, kinesin family members (KIF) are microtubule-interacting proteins involved in many diverse cellular functions, including transport of cargo (organelles, proteins and lipids) along microtubules and regulating the dynamics of cytoplasmic and spindle microtubules through their depolymerising activity. Many KIFs are also involved in diverse ciliary functions including assembly/disassembly, motility and signalling. We here review these ciliary kinesins in vertebrates and focus on their involvement in ciliopathy-related disorders.

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Maize abnormal chromosome 10 (Ab10) encodes a classic example of true meiotic drive that converts heterochromatic regions called knobs into motile neocentromeres that are preferentially transmitted to egg cells. Here, we identify a cluster of eight genes on Ab10, called the Kinesin driver (Kindr) complex, that are required for both neocentromere motility and preferential transmission. Two meiotic drive mutants that lack neocentromere activity proved to be kindr epimutants with increased DNA methylation across the entire gene cluster. RNAi of Kindr induced a third epimutant and corresponding loss of meiotic drive. Kinesin gliding assays and immunolocalization revealed that KINDR is a functional minus-end-directed kinesin that localizes specifically to knobs containing 180 bp repeats. Sequence comparisons suggest that Kindr diverged from a Kinesin-14A ancestor ∼12 mya and has driven the accumulation of > 500 Mb of knob repeats and affected the segregation of thousands of genes linked to knobs on all 10 chromosomes.

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Intracellular transport along microtubules enables cellular cargoes to efficiently reach the extremities of large, eukaryotic cells. While it would take more than 200 years for a small vesicle to diffuse from the cell body to the growing tip of a one-meter long axon, transport by a kinesin allows delivery in one week. It is clear from this example that the evolution of intracellular transport was tightly linked to the development of complex and macroscopic life forms. The human genome encodes 45 kinesins, 8 of those belonging to the family of kinesin-3 organelle transporters that are known to transport a variety of cargoes towards the plus end of microtubules. However, their mode of action, their tertiary structure, and regulation are controversial. In this review, we summarize the latest developments in our understanding of these fascinating molecular motors.

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Ciliates such as Tetrahymena thermophila have two distinct nuclei within one cell: the micronucleus that undergoes mitosis and meiosis and the macronucleus that undergoes amitosis, a type of nuclear division that does not involve a bipolar spindle, but still relies on intranuclear microtubules. Ciliates provide an opportunity for the discovery of factors that specifically contribute to chromosome segregation based on a bipolar spindle, by identification of factors that affect the micronuclear but not the macronuclear division. Kinesin-14 is a conserved minus-end directed microtubule motor that cross-links microtubules and contributes to the bipolar spindle sizing and organization. Here, we use homologous DNA recombination to knock out genes that encode kinesin-14 orthologues (KIN141, KIN142) in Tetrahymena. A loss of KIN141 led to severe defects in the chromosome segregation during both mitosis and meiosis but did not affect amitosis. A loss of KIN141 altered the shape of the meiotic spindle in a way consistent with the KIN141's contribution to the organization of the spindle poles. EGFP-tagged KIN141 preferentially accumulated at the spindle poles during the meiotic prophase and metaphase I. Thus, in ciliates, kinesin-14 is important for nuclear divisions that involve a bipolar spindle.

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Intracellular cargo transport frequently involves multiple motor types, either having opposite directionality or having the same directionality but different speeds. Although significant progress has been made in characterizing kinesin motors at the single-molecule level, predicting their ensemble behavior is challenging and requires tight coupling between experiments and modeling to uncover the underlying motor behavior. To understand how diverse kinesins attached to the same cargo coordinate their movement, we carried out microtubule gliding assays using pairwise mixtures of motors from the kinesin-1, -2, -3, -5, and -7 families engineered to have identical run lengths and surface attachments. Uniform motor densities were used and microtubule gliding speeds were measured for varying proportions of fast and slow motors. A coarse-grained computational model of gliding assays was developed and found to recapitulate the experiments. Simulations incorporated published force-dependent velocities and run lengths, along with mechanical interactions between motors bound to the same microtubule. The simulations show that the force-dependence of detachment is the key parameter that determines gliding speed in multimotor assays, while motor compliance, surface density, and stall force all play minimal roles. Simulations also provide estimates for force-dependent dissociation rates, suggesting that kinesin-1 and the mitotic motors kinesin-5 and -7 maintain microtubule association against loads, whereas kinesin-2 and -3 readily detach. This work uncovers unexpected motor behavior in multimotor ensembles and clarifies functional differences between kinesins that carry out distinct mechanical tasks in cells.

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Kinesins are ATP-dependent molecular motors that mediate unidirectional intracellular transport along microtubules. Dictyostelium discoideum has 13 different kinesin isoforms including two members of the kinesin-7 family, Kif4 and Kif11. While Kif4 is structurally and functionally related to centromere-associated CENP-E proteins involved in the transport of chromosomes to the poles during mitosis, the function of the unusually short CENP-E variant Kif11 is unclear. Here we show that orthologs of short CENP-E variants are present in plants and fungi, and analyze functional properties of the Dictyostelium CENP-E version, Kif11. Gene knockout mutants reveal that Kif11 is not required for mitosis or development. Imaging of GFP-labeled Kif11 expressing Dictyostelium cells indicates that Kif11 is a plus-end directed motor that accumulates at microtubule plus ends. By multiple motor gliding assays, we show that Kif11 moves with an average velocity of 38nm/s, thus defining Kif11 as a very slow motor. The activity of the Kif11 motor appears to be modulated via interactions with the non-catalytic tail region. Our work highlights a subclass of kinesin-7-like motors that function outside of a role in mitosis.

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Kar3 kinesins are microtubule (MT) minus-end-directed motors with pleiotropic functions in mitotic spindle formation and nuclear movement in budding and fission yeasts. A Kar3-like kinesin is also expressed by the filamentous fungus Ashbya gossypi, which exhibits different nuclear movement challenges from its yeast relatives. Presented here is a 2.35 Å crystal structure and enzymatic analysis of the AgKar3 motor domain (AgKar3MD). Compared to the previously published Saccharomyces cerevisiae Kar3MD structure (ScKar3MD), AgKar3MD displays differences in the conformation of some of its nucleotide-binding motifs and peripheral elements. Unlike ScKar3MD, the salt bridge between Switch I and Switch II in AgKar3MD is broken. Most of the Switch I, and the adjoining region of helix α3, are also disordered instead of bending into the active site cleft as is observed in ScKar3MD. These aspects of AgKar3MD are highly reminiscent of the ScKar3 R598A mutant that disrupts the Switch I-Switch II salt bridge and impairs MT-stimulated ATPase activity of the motor. Subtle differences in the disposition of secondary structure elements in the small lobe (ß1a, ß1b, and ß1c) at the edge of the MD are also apparent even though it contains approximately the same number of residues as ScKar3. These differences may reflect the unique enzymatic properties we measured for this motor, which include a lower MT-stimulated ATPase rate relative to ScKar3, or they could relate to its interactions with different regulatory companion proteins than its budding yeast counterpart.

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Cytoskeletal motors include myosins, kinesins and dyneins. Myosins move along tracks of actin filaments, whereas kinesins and dyneins move along microtubules. Many of these motors are involved in trafficking cargo in cells. However, myosins are mostly monomeric, whereas kinesins are mostly dimeric, owing to the presence of a coiled coil. Some myosins (myosins 6, 7 and 10) contain an SAH (single α-helical) domain, which was originally thought to be a coiled coil. These myosins are now known to be monomers, not dimers. The differences between SAH domains and coiled coils are described and the potential roles of SAH domains in molecular motors are discussed.

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Correct cell functioning, division and morphogenesis rely on efficient intracellular transport. Apart from dyneins and myosins, kinesins are the main proteins responsible for intracellular movement. Kinesins are a large, diverse group of motor proteins, which based on phylogenetic similarity were classified into fourteen families. Among these families, due to the location of their motor domains, three groups have been characterized: N-, C- and M-kinesin. As molecular motors, kinesins transport various molecules and vesicles mainly towards the microtubule plus end (from the cell body) participating in anterograde transport, although there are also kinesins involved in retrograde transport (C-kinesins). Kinesins are also involved in spindle formation, chromosome segregation, and spermatogenesis. Because of their great importance for the correct functioning of cells, mutations in kinesin coding genes may lead to such neurodegenerative diseases as dominant hereditary spastic paraplegia or Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

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Past phylogenic studies have identified a plant-specific, ungrouped family of kinesins in which the motor domain does not group to one of the fourteen recognized families. Members of this family contain an N-terminal motor domain, a C-terminal armadillo repeat domain and a conserved destruction box (D-BOX) motif. This domain architecture is unique to plants and to a subset of protists. Further characterization of one representative member from Arabidopsis, Arabidopsis thaliana KINESIN ungrouped clade, gene A (AtKINUa), was completed to ascertain its functional role in plants. Fluorescence confocal microscopy revealed an accumulation of ATKINUA:GFP at the preprophase band (PPB) in a cell cycle-dependent manner in Arabidopsis epidermal cells and tobacco BY-2 cells. Fluorescence accumulation was highest during prophase and decreased after nuclear envelope breakdown. A conserved D-BOX motif was identified through alignment of AtKINU homologous sequences. Mutagenesis work with D-BOX revealed that conserved residues were necessary for the observed degradation pattern of ATKINUA:GFP, as well as the targeted accumulation at the PPB. Overall results suggest that AtKINUa is necessary for normal plant growth and/or development and is likely involved with PPB organization through microtubule association and specific cell cycle regulation. The D-BOX motif may function to bridge microtubule organization with changes that occur during progression through mitosis and may represent a novel regulatory motif in plant microtubule motor proteins.

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We previously demonstrated that the rice kinesin K16, which belongs to the kinesin-7 subfamily, has unique enzymatic properties and atomic structure within key functional regions. In this study, we focused on a novel rice plant kinesin, K23, which also belongs to the kinesin-7 subfamily. The biochemical characterization of the K23 motor domain (K23MD) was studied and compared with the rice kinesin K16 and other related kinesins. K23 exhibits ∼45-fold (1.3 Pi mol(-1) site mol(-1) s(-1)) lower microtubule-dependent ATPase activity than conventional kinesins, whereas its affinity for microtubules is comparable with conventional kinesins. MgADP-free K23 is unstable compared with the unusually stable MgADP-free K16MD. The enzymatic properties of K23MD are somewhat different from those of K16. We used a fluorescent ATP analogue 2'(3')-O-(N'-methylanthraniloyl)-ATP (mant-ATP) for the kinetic characterization of K23. The fluorescence of mant-ATP was not significantly altered during its hydrolysis by K23. However, significant fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) between mant-ATP and W21 in the motor domain was observed. The kinetic study using FRET revealed that K23 has unique kinetic characteristics when compared with other kinesins.

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Genomic analysis predicted that the rice (Oryza sativa var. japonica) genome encodes at least 41 kinesin-like proteins including the novel kinesin O12, which is classified as a kinesin-14 family member. O12 has a calponin homology (CH) domain that is known as an actin-binding domain. In this study, we expressed the functional domains of O12 in Escherichia coli and determined its enzymatic characteristics compared with other kinesins. The microtubule-dependent ATPase activity of recombinant O12 containing the motor and CH domains was significantly reduced in the presence of actin. Interestingly, microtubule-dependent ATPase activity of the motor domain was also affected by actin in the absence of the CH domain. Our findings suggest that the motor activity of the rice plant-specific kinesin O12 may be regulated by actin.

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BACKGROUND: Kinesin-13 proteins have a critical role in animal cell mitosis, during which they regulate spindle microtubule dynamics through their depolymerisation activity. Much of what is known about Kinesin-13 function emanates from a relatively small sub-family of proteins containing MCAK and Kif2A/B. However, recent work on kinesins from the much more widely distributed, ancestral Kinesin-13 family, which includes human Kif24, have identified a second function in flagellum length regulation that may exist either alongside or instead of the mitotic role. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The African trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei encodes 7 distinct Kinesin-13 proteins, allowing scope for extensive specialisation of roles. Here, we show that of all the trypanosomal Kinesin-13 proteins, only one is nuclear. This protein, TbKIN13-1, is present in the nucleoplasm throughout the cell cycle, but associates with the spindle during mitosis, which in trypanosomes is closed. TbKIN13-1 is necessary for the segregation of both large and mini-chromosomes in this organism and reduction in TbKIN13-1 levels mediated by RNA interference causes deflects in spindle disassembly with spindle-like structures persisting in non-mitotic cells. A second Kinesin-13 is localised to the flagellum tip, but the majority of the Kinesin-13 family members are in neither of these cellular locations. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These data show that the expanded Kinesin-13 repertoire of trypanosomes is not associated with diversification of spindle-associated roles. TbKIN13-1 is required for correct spindle function, but the extra-nuclear localisation of the remaining paralogues suggests that the biological roles of the Kinesin-13 family is wider than previously thought.

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Spermiogenesis in Octopus tankahkeei involves striking cellular reorganization to generate a mature spermatozoon. This process may require spermatid-specific adaptation of cytoskeleton and associated molecular motor proteins. KIFC1 is a C-terminal kinesin motor with important roles in acrosome biogenesis and nuclear reshaping during spermiogenesis in rat. Here, we have cloned and characterized the gene encoding a homologue of rat KIFC1, termed as ot-kifc1, from the testis of O. tankahkeei. The 2229 bp complete cDNA contains a 75 bp 5'-untranslated region, a 1992 bp open reading frame and a 162 bp 3'-untranslated region. The deduced protein shares an overall identity of 40%, 41%, 39% and 41% with its counterpart from human, rat, mouse and African clawed frog, respectively. Tissue expression analysis revealed ot-kifc1 was expressed in testis, gill and hepatopancreas, but not in other tissues examined. In situ hybridization result showed the ot-kifc1 message was hardly detectable in early spermatid, concentrated at the tail region of intermediate spermatid, abundant in spermatid undergoing dramatic elongation and compression, enriched at one end in late spermatids and disappeared in mature sperm. In conclusion, the expression of ot-kifc1 at specific stages of spermiogenesis suggests a role for this motor in major cytological transformations.

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Intracellular transport is fundamental for cellular function, survival and morphogenesis. Kinesin superfamily proteins (also known as KIFs) are important molecular motors that directionally transport various cargos, including membranous organelles, protein complexes and mRNAs. The mechanisms by which different kinesins recognize and bind to specific cargos, as well as how kinesins unload cargo and determine the direction of transport, have now been identified. Furthermore, recent molecular genetic experiments have uncovered important and unexpected roles for kinesins in the regulation of such physiological processes as higher brain function, tumour suppression and developmental patterning. These findings open exciting new areas of kinesin research.

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Pancreatic carcinoma is the fourth leading cause of death from cancer. Novel targets and therapeutic options are needed to aid in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. The compound UA62784 is a novel fluorenone with inhibitory activity against the centromere protein E (CENP-E) kinesin-like protein. UA62784 was isolated due to its selectivity in isogenic pancreatic carcinoma cell lines with a deletion of the DPC4 gene. UA62784 causes mitotic arrest by inhibiting chromosome congression at the metaphase plate likely through inhibition of the microtubule-associated ATPase activity of CENP-E. Furthermore, CENP-E binding to kinetochores during mitosis is not affected by UA62784, suggesting that the target lies within the motor domain of CENP-E. UA62784 is a novel specific inhibitor of CENP-E and its activity suggests a potential role for antimitotic drugs in treating pancreatic carcinomas.

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Within the mitotic spindle, there are multiple populations of microtubules with different turnover dynamics, but how these different dynamics are maintained is not fully understood. MCAK is a member of the kinesin-13 family of microtubule-destabilizing enzymes that is required for proper establishment and maintenance of the spindle. Using quantitative immunofluorescence and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, we compared the differences in spindle organization caused by global suppression of microtubule dynamics, by treating cells with low levels of paclitaxel, versus specific perturbation of spindle microtubule subsets by MCAK inhibition. Paclitaxel treatment caused a disruption in spindle microtubule organization marked by a significant increase in microtubules near the poles and a reduction in K-fiber fluorescence intensity. This was correlated with a faster t(1/2) of both spindle and K-fiber microtubules. In contrast, MCAK inhibition caused a dramatic reorganization of spindle microtubules with a significant increase in astral microtubules and reduction in K-fiber fluorescence intensity, which correlated with a slower t(1/2) of K-fibers but no change in the t(1/2) of spindle microtubules. Our data support the model that MCAK perturbs spindle organization by acting preferentially on a subset of microtubules, and they support the overall hypothesis that microtubule dynamics is differentially regulated in the spindle.

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