Molecular motors, an important class of molecular machines, harness various energy sources to move unidirectionally [1]. The operational principles of molecular motors are distinct from those of man-made macroscopic motors, because they have nanoscale dimensions and generally work in a solution environment where viscosity is dominant. Under these low Reynolds number, overdamped conditions, they cannot rely on inertia to sustain motion. Furthermore, they are continually agitated by random Brownian motion, which provides both challenges and opportunities for the unidirectional motion.
To understand the operational principles of molecular motors, we are developing single-molecule imaging techniques which enable visualization of their fast and dynamic motions with microsecond time resolution and angstrom localization precision [2, 3]. Furthermore, to understand their design principles and to outperform natural ones, we are engineering non-natural motor proteins and synthetic molecular motors by using saturation mutagenesis [4], hybrid/chimera generation [5], and computational design [6]. In this seminar, I will overview our approaches by introducing our results on rotary and linear motors such as V-ATPase [7, 8], processive chitinase [9], kinesin [10], and dynein [11], and a synthetic DNA-nanoparticle motor.
 
References
[1] Iino R, et al., Chem Rev, 120, 1-4 (2020)
[2] Ando J, et al., Biophys J, 115, 2413-2427 (2018)
[3] Ando J, et al., ACS Photonics, 6, 2870-2883 (2019)
[4] Visootsat A, et al., ACS Omega, 5, 26807–26816 (2020)
[5] Baba M, et al., PNAS, 113, 11214-11219 (2016)
[6] Kosugi T, et al., Nat Chem, (2023) DOI: 10.1038/s41557-023-01256-4
[7] Iida T, et al., J Biol Chem, 294, 17017-17030 (2019)
[8] Otomo A, et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 119, e2210204119 (2022)
[9] Nakamura A, et al., Nat Commun, 9, 3814 (2018)
[10] Isojima H, et al., Nat Chem Biol, 12, 290-297 (2016)
[11] Ando J, et al., Sci Rep, 10, Article number: 1080 (2020)