Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Geometrical reorganization of Motor proteins and its relevance to transport of cellular cargos

Roop Mallik

TIFR, Mumbai

Many biological processes require the generation of force inside cells of your body. For example, the force that allows you to move around, cells to divide etc. The unit generator of force that drives almost all biological movement is a nanoscale molecule called a motor protein. A motor generates a few pico-Newtons of force. This is certainly not enough for you to move around -- therefore, multiple motors must work in a team to do things inside the cells of your body. How motors generate force collectively as a team is therefore important, but is poorly understood. We have used optical trapping to measure this collective force with the precision of a single motor's force. Our work suggests that the underlying lipid membrane acts as a mechanically rigid platform on which many motors assemble as a team. Once such a team is assembled, these motors can generate collective force to transport large cargoes inside the cell.