FIGURE 4.
The time required for two-kinesin complexes to develop load-sharing configurations is large. Mechanical modeling of two-kinesin complexes (see Ref. 14) indicates that trailing motors will typically bind at sites positioned well behind their leading partners. When Fap = 5 pN, this model predicts motors will be separated by 112 nm on the microtubule on average (illustration at top). The plot beneath the illustration shows a predicted dependence of the rate at which the trailing motor will bind to different sites (black line, left axis) and the corresponding load this motor will experience after a binding transition (red line, right axis). The bottom plot shows the rate that the trailing motor's portion of the 5 pN load increases assuming the separation distance between the leading and trailing motor was initially 112 nm.