Talk:Kinesin
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I noticed this article was tagged as confusing, so I'm creating a talk page for people to hash it out. I think there might be a mistake on the page with respect to "polarity" and kinesin. What I think the author of that section is trying to say is that the kinesin protein itself tends to "walk" to the + end of the microtubule, and not that kinesin itself has a + end. Could someone please clarify? 64.59.144.85 06:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
As far as I know, kinesins do NOT have a + end per se (ignoring any charge residues). The section on polarity is most likely referring to the microtubule, which does have a + and a - end assigned to it. I'm going to change it, but it would be great if someone could double-check for me - this isn't quite my field. Jenalala 06:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
You are correct. As far as I've been able to determine from the literature, kinesins and dyneins do not have a polar end and the author was referring to directionality of their "hand-over-hand" movement down microtubules. Some of the most recent literature suggests the dynein-dynactin motor complex is actually quite flexible in directionality, which makes sense when considering intracellular transport. If a microtubule pathway was blocked, nothing would stop an endless trainwreck of unidirectional motor proteins carrying loads of mitochondria, actin filaments, vesicles, and smooth ER (in the case of axons).
I'm familiar with kinesin and have updated the page. --Richwil 13:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
From my understanding, kinesins (at least Kinesin-1) move toward the + end of the microtubule, in the anterograde direction. I will double check and correct if necessary.
Mikmd —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 14:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] lead section
When I visited the page Oct 2007, the article was lacking a lead section, i.e. a commonly understood short section (max. 4 paragraphs) explaining the essentials. I attempted to write that and keep out too much jargon or explaining it in brackets. Feel free to improve it. Jakob Suckale 16:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
