| Spiral Defects in Motility Assays: A Measure of Motor Protein Force (1995) | |||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||
| In a commonly used motility assay, cytoskeletal filaments are observed as they glide over a surface coated with motor proteins. Defects in the motion frequently interrupt the flow of filaments. Examination of one such defect, in which a filament adopts a spiral form and rotates about a fixed point, provides a simple measure of the force exerted by the motor proteins. We demonstrate the universality of this approach by estimating the elementary forces of both myosin and kinesin. | |||||||||||
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