Visualisation reveals how a protein 'hunkers down' to conserve energy
A visualization made from nearly 100,000 electron microscope images has revealed the ingenious way a protein involved in muscle activity shuts itself down to conserve energy.
A visualization made from nearly 100,000 electron microscope images has revealed the ingenious way a protein involved in muscle activity shuts itself down to conserve energy.
Molecular & Computational biology
Dec 2, 2020
0
61
Myosins are motor proteins that convert chemical energy into mechanical work, generating force and movement. Myosin II generates forces that are essential to drive cell movements and cell shape changes that generate tissue ...
Biotechnology
Oct 28, 2019
0
106
Every living thing moves—prey from predators, ants to crumbs, leaves toward sunlight. But at the most fundamental level, scientists are still struggling to grasp the physics behind how our own cells build, move, transport ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 30, 2019
0
1911
Each time you flex your bicep, millions of molecular motors work together in a complex process inside your muscle. These motors—called myosin—are chemically-powered proteins. Combinations of them perform different muscular ...
Engineering
Sep 13, 2017
1
299
The 'stiff-legged' walk of a motor protein along a tightrope-like filament has been captured for the first time.
Bio & Medicine
Apr 24, 2015
4
26
The contents of plant cells undergo continuous mixing by a process known as cytoplasmic streaming. Yet although this process was discovered more than 200 years ago, its exact purpose has remained unclear. Motoki Tominaga ...
Biotechnology
Jan 24, 2014
0
0
A group led by Professor Ikuko Hara-Nishimura (Department of Botany, Graduate School of Science) revealed the molecular mechanism underlying nuclear movement in plants.
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 5, 2013
0
0
The mechanism responsible for generating part of the skeletal support for the membrane in animal cells is not yet clearly understood. Now, Jean-François Joanny from the Physico Chemistry Curie Unit at the Curie Institute ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 10, 2013
0
0
The motor protein myosin-V, which hauls molecular cargoes around cells by ratcheting along filaments of actin, switches between two different molecular mechanisms of movement depending on the environment. This finding by ...
Cell & Microbiology
Dec 21, 2012
0
0
Cells can show a remarkable range of motility, creeping over substrates using a variety of pushes, pulls, stretches, and drags to get from A to B. This range of motion is achieved through the concerted efforts of motor proteins ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 25, 2012
0
0