Stanford Mechanics and Computation
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Mechanical Signaling by Motor Proteins during Mitosis and Cell Motility
Jonathan Howard Mechanical Signaling by Motor Proteins during Mitosis and Cell Motility Our laboratory is interested in the biochemical and biophysical basis of cell shape and motion. The shape of a cell is determined primarily by its cytoskeleton, which serves as a scaffold to support the plasma membrane and internal organelles. The cytoskeleton also serves a network of tracks along which motor proteins transport subcellular structures. Our research is therefore focused on the mechanics of the cytoskeleton, with a particular emphasis on microtubules and microtubule-based motor proteins. How do microtubules and their motors orchestrate cell morphology and motility? For example, how do the dynamic properties of microtubules drive mitotic spindle assembly and chromosome movement in mitosis, and how does dynein drive the flagellar beat? What makes these problems so fascinating is that somehow molecules, whose dimension is on the order of nanometers, coordinate the assembly or movement of structures whose dimension is on the order of the size of the cell, some thousands to millions of times larger than molecular dimensions. Our recent studies have led us to the view that motor proteins play a central role in coordinating molecular motion and assembly. They are capable of sensing and responding to forces within mechanical networks such as the axoneme, and they are able to measure and control the lengths of microtubules within cellular structures such as the mitotic spindle. Our approach is to characterize the interactions between the individual molecules in vitro, to use theory to understand how these interactions lead to the collective behavior of ensembles of molecules, and then to test these models with in vivo experiments.
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