The role of kinesin neck region in force generation

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Ncd, a member of kinesin super family, moves toward the minus end of microtubule. Neck region of kineshin and ncd is considered to be important to determine the polarity of the movement, because the structural difference between the motor domains of kineshin and ncd is not essential. We made a chymeric protein which consists of kinesin motor domain and ncd neck domain. This chymeric protein did not show the directional movement on microtubules. The measurement of ATPase activity revealed that the values of Kcat and K_<50%MT> are 7.8 S^<-1> and 0.22 muM,respectively. Comparing these values with those of kineshin fragment (kineshin motor domain and kineshin neck domain), the chymeric protein seemed to be unable to perform the processive movement. These results indicate that the neck region play an important role to determine the polarity of the movement.