Lin Li

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  Electrostatic interactions play important roles in kinesin proceeding on microtubule
  Lin Li
  One of the most important roles of Kinesins is transporting cargo and organelles along microtubules. N-kinesins proceeding toward the plus-end of microtubule while C-kinesin proceeding toward the minus end. Many experimental researches and few computational efforts have been performed to investigate the mechanism of kinesins’ proceeding. However, many details of the mechanism for the kinesins’ proceeding are still unknown. One of the reason is the size of the kinesin-microtubule system is too large for simulations. A Monte Carlo simulation approach with discrete conformational sampling algorithm is developed to reveal the role of electrostatic interactions in kinesins’ proceeding on microtubule. We find that the electrostatic profile on microtubule forms potential valleys around the microtubule, which keeps kinesin walking along the longitudinal direction of microtubule rather than lateral direction. The simulated pathways on N-kinesin, C-kinesin and nanoparticle show that the electrostatic interactions guide the kinesins walking toward their directions.