Kinesin: world's tiniest biped.

Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington 98195-7290, USA. casbury@u.washington.edu

Kinesin, an essential motor protein that moves intracellular cargo along microtubules, walks like a person. When we walk, our feet exchange roles with each step, one moving and one remaining stationary. The moving foot travels twice as far as our torso during a single step, and our body alternates between two configurations (left vs. right leg leading). Recent work shows that kinesin shares all three of these hallmarks of bipedal walking. The challenge now is to determine how the gait of this lilliputian biped is coordinated.

PMID: 15661524 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]