Abstract
The movement of eukaryotic cilia and flagella is caused by ATP-driven active sliding between the doublet microtubules1–3, and the force for the sliding is believed to be generated by the dynein arms of the A-tubule interacting with the B-tubule of the adjoining doublet. To understand the mechanochemical basis of this force-generating reaction and to correlate it with the overt motile behaviour of cilia or flagella, it is important to quantify the force exerted by the dynein arms. Attempts have been made to estimate this force from the bending moment generated by the whole organelle4,5, but the estimation was of necessity hypothetical because the mechanism by which sliding is coupled with bending is poorly understood. Microtubule sliding without bending can be induced in vitro if trypsin-2 or elastase6-treated axonemes are perfused with a solution containing ATP. By attaching glass microneedles to such axonemes, we have now directly determined the sliding force at various ATP concentrations.
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Kamimura, S., Takahashi, K. Direct measurement of the force of microtubule sliding in flagella. Nature 293, 566–568 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/293566a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/293566a0
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