Figure 3. High-resolution surface metal shadowing of kinesin motors.
Kinesin motors bound to ADP were incubated with microtubules at sub-stoichiometric levels and shadowed with tantalum/tungsten. Dimeric motor constructs are identified by a yellow arrow pairs in A) Kar3Cik1, B) dimeric Ncd, and C) dimeric Eg5 (a kinesin-5). The kinesin-14 motors appear to bind sparsely along the microtubules and span adjacent protofilaments (red relative to yellow arrows in A and B) while dimeric kinesin-5s appear to bind to adjacent tubulin subunits along the same protofilament (red relative to yellow arrows in C).