Volume 4, Number 2, p. 50-63
Kinesin step without external force takes less than 70 microseconds
Aurélie Dornier 1, Lorenzo Busoni 1, Konstantin Zeldovich1, Boris Guirao 1, Gautier Robin 2, Giovanni Cappello 1 and Jacques Prost1
1
Physico Chimie Curie, UMR CNRS/IC 168, 26 rue d¹Ulm, 75248 Paris CEDEX 05, France.
2
Institut de Biologie Structurale (CEA-CNRS-UJF), 41 rue Jules Horowitz, 38027 Grenoble CEDEX 01, France.
The kinesin-microtubules dynamics is characterized by Interference Total Internal Reflexion Microscopy (ITIRM). The kinesin step is measured with nanometer precision and a time resolution of six microseconds, in the absence of the external load. We observe that, without external force, the 8 nanometre kinesin step occurs in less than 70 microseconds and the step has no internal structure at this time scale.