Dynein

Dynein is a family of cytoskeletal motor proteins that move along microtubules in cells. They convert the chemical energy stored in ATP to mechanical work. Dynein transports various cellular cargos, provides forces and displacements important in mitosis, and drives the beat of eukaryotic cilia and flagella. All of these functions rely on dynein's ability to move towards the minus-end of the microtubules, known as retrograde transport, thus, they are called 'minus-end directed motors'. In contrast, kinesin motor proteins move toward the microtubules' plus end. Dynein is a family of cytoskeletal motor proteins that move along microtubules in cells. They convert the chemical energy stored in ATP to mechanical work. Dynein transports various cellular cargos, provides forces and displacements important in mitosis, and drives the beat of eukaryotic cilia and flagella. All of these functions rely on dynein's ability to move towards the minus-end of the microtubules, known as retrograde transport, thus, they are called 'minus-end directed motors'. In contrast, kinesin motor proteins move toward the microtubules' plus end. Dyneins can be divided into two groups: cytoplasmic dyneins and axonemal dyneins, which are also called ciliary or flagellar dyneins. Axonemal dynein causes sliding of microtubules in the axonemes of cilia and flagella and is found only in cells that have those structures. Cytoplasmic dynein, found in all animal cells and possibly plant cells as well, performs functions necessary for cell survival such as organelle transport and centrosome assembly. Cytoplasmic dynein moves processively along the microtubule; that is, one or the other of its stalks is always attached to the microtubule so that the dynein can 'walk' a considerable distance along a microtubule without detaching. Cytoplasmic dynein helps to position the Golgi complex and other organelles in the cell. It also helps transport cargo needed for cell function such as vesicles made by the endoplasmic reticulum, endosomes, and lysosomes (Karp, 2005). Dynein is involved in the movement of chromosomes and positioning the mitotic spindles for cell division. Dynein carries organelles, vesicles and possibly microtubule fragments along the axons of neurons toward the cell body in a process called retrograde axoplasmic transport. Cytoplasmic dynein positions the spindle at the site of cytokinesis by anchoring to the cell cortex and pulling on astral microtubules emanating from centrosome. Budding yeast have been a powerful model organism to study this process and has shown that dynein is targeted to plus ends of astral microtubules and delivered to the cell cortex via an offloading mechanism. Dynein and kinesin can both be exploited by viruses to mediate the viral replication process. Many viruses use the microtubule transport system to transport nucleic acid/protein cores to intracellular replication sites after invasion past the cell membrane. Not much is known about virus' motor-specific binding sites, but it is known that some viruses contain proline-rich sequences (that diverge between viruses) which, when removed, reduces dynactin binding, axon transport (in culture), and neuroinvasion in vivo. This suggests that proline-rich sequences may be a major binding site that co-opts Dynein. Each molecule of the dynein motor is a complex protein assembly composed of many smaller polypeptide subunits. Cytoplasmic and axonemal dynein contain some of the same components, but they also contain some unique subunits. Cytoplasmic dynein, which has a molecular mass of about 1.5 megadaltons (MDa), is a dimer of dimers, containing approximately twelve polypeptide subunits: two identical 'heavy chains', 520 kDa in mass, which contain the ATPase activity and are thus responsible for generating movement along the microtubule; two 74 kDa intermediate chains which are believed to anchor the dynein to its cargo; two 53–59 kDa light intermediate chains; and several light chains.