Junichiro Yajima

TL;DR: It is found that both a weak and a strong binding state exist in each head of kinesin corresponding to a small and a large unbinding force, respectively; that is, weak for the ADP state and strong for the nucleotide-free and adenosine 5′-[β,γ-imido]triphosphate states.

TL;DR: Three-dimensional tracking of a quantum dot attached to the microtubule in a motility assay is used to directly visualize the corkscrew motion of a sliding microtubules, confirming that two-headed Eg5 is much less processive than two- headed kinesin-1.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that terpendole E (TerE) is a novel Eg5 inhibitor isolated from a fungal strain that inhibited both motor and microtubule-stimulated ATPase activities of human Eg5, but did not affect conventional kinesin from either Drosophila or bovine brain.

TL;DR: This work fused kinesin to gelsolin, creating a construct that severs and caps rhodamine-phalloidin actin filaments, setting exactly one kinesIn molecule on one end of each fluorescent actin filament, and uses the new system to show that, contrary to a recent report, kines in run length at low load is independent of ATP concentration in the muM to mM range of ATP concentrations.

TL;DR: The initial characterization of Kid as a microtubule‐based motor using optical trapping microscopy shows results consistent with Kid having a role in chromosome congression in vivo, where it would be responsible for the polar ejection forces acting on the chromosome arms.