Seminar Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Time: 11:00 AM PT
Location: 67-3111 & Zoom
Talk Title: The Mechanism and Regulation of the Dynein Transport Machinery
Zoom recording (available for 30 days)
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Abstract:
Eukaryotic cells are intricately organized on many length and time scales, from molecules to organelles. Much of this organization is achieved by kinesin and dynein motors, which directionally transport intracellular components along microtubules. While detailed mechanistic models now exist for individual motor complexes, it remains unclear how these opposing motors are recruited to specific cargos, regulated to achieve bidirectional transport, and sorted to deliver their cargo to correct destinations. Recent studies indicated that signals that mediate polarized transport can be encoded on the microtubule tracks, but the precise nature of such signals and how they control transport remain to be deciphered. To address these questions, we perform structural and mechanistic studies on physiologically relevant transport complexes in the presence of their cofactors and regulatory proteins. I will present a biophysical model for how dynein accessory factors stimulate the activation of the dynein transport machinery. I will also discuss our recent efforts to dissect how opposing motors are coordinated when they are recruited to their respective cargos during transport.
Bio:
Ahmet Yildiz received his Ph.D. in Biophysics with Paul Selvin at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2004. After completing his postdoctoral work with Ron Vale at the University of California San Francisco, he joined the Physics Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 2008.
Eukaryotic cells are intricately organized on many length and time scales, from molecules to organelles. Much of this organization is achieved by motor proteins, which directionally transport intracellular components along cytoskeletal tracks (myosin on actin filaments, kinesin and dynein on microtubules). The Yildiz Laboratory combines biochemical and single-molecule biophysical techniques to understand how motor proteins move on microtubules long distances at fast speeds and produce the forces required to carry their cargo in a dense cytoplasm. Despite decades of extensive research, our understanding of how these motors are recruited to specific cargoes and how they deliver the cargoes to their correct destinations remains incomplete. Owing to recent progress in biochemical reconstitution and cryo-electron microscopy, we are now in a better position to model microtubule-based transport in vitro and start tackling these questions.
