Simultaneous tracking of two motor domains reveals near simultaneous steps and stutter steps of myosin 10 on actin filament bundles

Myo10 tail is crucial for promoting long filopodia

Filopodia are slender cellular protrusions containing parallel actin bundles involved in environmental sensing and signaling, cell adhesion and migration, and growth cone guidance and extension. Myosin 10 (Myo10), an unconventional actin-based motor protein, was reported to induce filopodial initiation with its motor domain. However, the roles of the multifunctional tail domain of Myo10 in filopodial formation and elongation remain elusive. Herein, we generated several constructs of Myo10-full-length Myo10, Myo10 with a truncated tail (Myo10 HMM), and Myo10 containing four mutations to disrupt its coiled-coil domain (Myo10 CC mutant). We found that the truncation of the tail domain decreased filopodial formation and filopodial length, while four mutations in the coiled-coil domain disrupted the motion of Myo10 toward filopodial tips and the elongation of filopodia. Furthermore, we found that filopodia elongated through multiple elongation cycles, which was supported by the Myo10 tail. These findings suggest that Myo10 tail is crucial for promoting long filopodia.

A numerical method for resolving finite mixtures of three-dimensional inter-site distance distributions measured by single-molecule localization microscopy

The three-dimensional (3D) inter-site distance can be measured by single-molecule localization microscopy. Existing theories and analysis tools for 3D inter-site distance measurement only consider the simplest case where all measured distances are from an identical 3D Rician distribution. There are many problems where the 3D inter-site distance measurement result is made up of multiple components, for example, the measurement of intramolecular distances of deoxyribonucleic acid with multiple possible conformations. In these cases, the overall distance distributions become finite mixtures of 3D Rician distributions (or 3D Rician mixtures). Here, we provide a numerical method using the 3D Rician mixture model to resolve the finite 3D inter-site distance mixtures, which is based on the expectation-maximization algorithm. The proposed method has been tested on simulation data of finite 3D inter-site distance mixtures. The result using the Gaussian mixture model in the developed method is also discussed for comparison.

Simultaneous Real-Time Three-Dimensional Localization and FRET Measurement of Two Distinct Particles

Many biological processes employ mechanisms involving the locations and interactions of multiple components. Given that most biological processes occur in three dimensions, the simultaneous measurement of three-dimensional locations and interactions is necessary. However, the simultaneous three-dimensional precise localization and measurement of interactions in real time remains challenging. Here, we report a new microscopy technique to localize two spectrally distinct particles in three dimensions with an accuracy (2.35σ) of tens of nanometers with an exposure time of 100 ms and to measure their real-time interactions using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) simultaneously. Using this microscope, we tracked two distinct vesicles containing t-SNAREs or v-SNARE in three dimensions and observed FRET simultaneously during single-vesicle fusion in real time, revealing the nanoscale motion and interactions of single vesicles in vesicle fusion. Thus, this study demonstrates that our microscope can provide detailed information about real-time three-dimensional nanoscale locations, motion, and interactions in biological processes.