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Originally published in Science Express on 5 June 2003
Science 27 June 2003:
Vol. 300. no. 5628, pp. 2061 - 2065
DOI: 10.1126/science.1084398
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Research Articles

Myosin V Walks Hand-Over-Hand: Single Fluorophore Imaging with 1.5-nm Localization

Ahmet Yildiz,1 Joseph N. Forkey,3 Sean A. McKinney,1,2 Taekjip Ha,1,2 Yale E. Goldman,3 Paul R. Selvin1,2*

Myosin V is a dimeric molecular motor that moves processively on actin, with the center of mass moving ~37 nanometers for each adenosine triphosphate hydrolyzed. We have labeled myosin V with a single fluorophore at different positions in the light-chain domain and measured the step size with a standard deviation of <1.5 nanometers, with 0.5-second temporal resolution, and observation times of minutes. The step size alternates between 37 + 2x nm and 37 – 2x, where x is the distance along the direction of motion between the dye and the midpoint between the two heads. These results strongly support a hand-over-hand model of motility, not an inchworm model.

1 Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA.
2 Physics Department, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA.
3 University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Muscle Institute, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: selvin{at}uiuc.edu

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