A team led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has determined the basic structural organization of a molecular motor that hauls cargoes and performs other critical functions within ...

Cytoplasmic dynein associates with dynactin to drive cargo movement on microtubules, but the structure of the dynein–dynactin complex is unknown. Using electron microscopy, we determined the ...

Nearly 50 years after the discovery of the walking molecular motor dynein, researchers have finally solved the first X-ray crystal structure of its massive motor domain. The milestone will permit ...

Biophysics is the study of physical phenomena and physical processes in living things, on scales spanning molecules, cells, tissues and organisms. Biophysicists use the principles and methods of ...

Intracellular protein aggregation is a common theme in neurodegenerative disease. The formation of aggregates is blamed on protein overproduction, a failure of clearance, or both. Score one for the ...

Researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which a protein facilitates the spread of breast cancer cells from the primary tumor into healthy tissue. The discovery not only improves our understanding ...

Study adds to the understanding of the mechanisms involved in cell reproduction and sheds light on a cellular-level mystery that has confounded researchers. Researchers at Dartmouth College have ...

A mechanism of dynein-powered metastatic locomotion has been identified using soft tissue models, revealing a new clinical target for breast cancer treatment. New research led by Penn State (PA, USA) ...

Our cells rely on microscopic highways and specialized protein vehicles to move everything—from positioning organelles to carting protein instructions to disposing of cellular garbage. These highways ...

What is the dynein-dynactin complex and where is it found? What functions is this molecular motor thought to perform within cells? This is a macromolecular assembly is made up of two components, ...

A research team led by Masahide Kikkawa, a professor of the University of Tokyo, established zebrafish mutants of all four PIH-protein genes and solved the structures of axonemal dyneins in mutant ...