Construction and purification of dynein ATP hydrolysis mutants.
A, a minimal S. cerevisiae cytoplasmic dynein that
demonstrates processive motility was engineered as described previously
(17). A glutathione
S-transferase tag (GST) was incorporated at the
NH2 terminus for the dimerization of the two heads of cytoplasmic
dynein, whereas a HaloTag was fused to the COOH terminus for fluorescent
labeling of the heads. In this paper, this construct is referred to as
“wild-type dynein.” Highly conserved glutamate residues in the
Walker B motif of domains AAA3 (E2488) and AAA4 (E2819) were mutated to
glutamine to block ATP hydrolysis. B, Coomassie Blue-stained
polyacrylamide gel of recombinant cytoplasmic dynein purified from S.
cerevisiae by affinity purification. 330-kDa recombinant dynein is
purified with minor amounts of 26-kDa IgG from the affinity matrix.
WT, wild type.