Chemomechanical transduction in the actomyosin molecular motor by 2',3'-dideoxydidehydro-ATP and characterization of its interaction with myosin subfragment 1 in the presence and absence of actin

Actomyosin systems of biological motility

Evolution of notions on the molecular mechanism of muscle contraction and other events based on the actin-myosin interaction, from the middle of XX century to the present time, is briefly reviewed, including recent views on the functioning of the myosin head as a "molecular motor". The results of structural and functional studies on the myosin head performed by the author and his colleagues using differential scanning calorimetry are also reviewed.

Structural studies on myosin II: communication between distant protein domains

Understanding how chemical energy is converted into directed movement is a fundamental problem in biology. In higher organisms this is accomplished through the hydrolysis of ATP by three families of motor proteins: myosin, dynein and kinesin. The most abundant of these is myosin, which operates against actin and plays a central role in muscle contraction. As summarized here, great progress has been made towards understanding the molecular basis of movement through the determination of the three-dimensional structures of myosin and actin and through the establishment of systems for site-directed mutagenesis of this motor protein. It now appears that the generation of movement is coupled to ATP hydrolysis by a series of domain movements within myosin.