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Home > Research Leaders > A to G > Andrew Carter
Andrew Carter ss

Andrew Carter

The structure and mechanism of dynein


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The contents of eukaryotic cells are organised and moved around by motor proteins running along the tracks that make up the cytoskeleton (microtubules and actin filaments). The largest and most complicated of these motors is cytoplasmic dynein. It is involved with numerous processes, from positioning organelles, to cell division, to clearing up misfolded proteins. Defects in dynein are linked to to developmental disorders and neurodegeneration. Dynein is also used by viruses, such as herpes and rabies, to infect the cell. Our goal is to use structural biology to improve our understanding of dynein’s roles in medically-relevant, cell-biological processes.

We used X-ray crystallography to solve structures of dynein’s motor, which explain how it uses ATP to move along microtubules. We took advantage of advances in electron cryo-microscopy to determine a 4Å structure of dynactin, a 23 subunit protein complex that is essential for dynein’s function. Our work showed how dynactin binds dynein and provided the first view of how dynein binds its cargos.

DDB02
Dynein (grey) is a motor protein that moves along microtubules (green). Dynein attaches to its cargo via an adaptor protein called Bicaudal-D2 (orange). The attachment requires the help of another protein complex called dynactin (multi-coloured).

We are now interested in the many structural and mechanistic questions that surround dynein. What does the whole dynein look like at an atomic level? How can one dynein complex carry so many different cargos? How is the motor’s transport regulated? To answer these we will combine in vitro reconstitution of transport and single molecule fluorescence motility assays with the latest techniques in structural biology.

Selected Papers

  • Foster HE, Ventura Santos C, Carter AP (2022)
    A cryo-ET survey of microtubules and intracellular compartments in mammalian axons
    J Cell Biol 221(2): e202103154
  • Mali GR, Ali FA, Lau CK, Begum F, Boulanger J, Howe JD, Chen ZA, Rappsilber J, Skehel M, Carter AP (2021)
    Shulin packages axonemal outer dynein arms for ciliary targeting
    Science 371(6532): 910-916.
  • Lau CK, O'Reilly FJ, Santhanam B, Lacey SE, Rappsilber J, Carter AP (2021)
    Cryo-EM reveals the complex architecture of dynactin's shoulder region and pointed end
    EMBO J. 40(8): e106164
  • Lacey SE, He S, Scheres SH, Carter AP (2019)
    Cryo-EM of dynein microtubule-binding domains shows how an axonemal dynein distorts the microtubule
    Elife 8: e47145
  • Reck-Peterson SL, Redwine WB, Vale RD, Carter AP (2018)
    The cytoplasmic dynein transport machinery and its many cargoes
    Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 19: 382-398.
  • Urnavicius L, Lau CK, Elshenawy MM, Morales-Rios E, Motz C, Yildiz A, Carter AP. (2018)
    Cryo-EM shows how dynactin recruits two dyneins for faster movement
    Nature 554(7691): 202-206.
  • Zhang K, Foster HE, Rondelet A, Lacey SE, Bahi-Buisson N, Bird AW, Carter AP. (2017)
    Cryo-EM Reveals How Human Cytoplasmic Dynein Is Auto-inhibited and Activated.
    Cell 169(7): 1303-1314
  • Urnavicius, L., Zhang, K., Diamant, A.G., Motz, C., Schlager, M.A., Yu, M., Patel, N.A., Robinson, C.V. and Carter, A.P (2015)
    The structure of the dynactin complex and its interaction with dynein.
    Science 347: 1441-1446
  • Schmidt, H., Zalyte, R., Urnavicius, L. and Carter, A.P (2015)
    Structure of human cytoplasmic dynein-2 primed for its power stroke.
    Nature 518: 435-438
  • Schlager, M.A., Hoang, H.T., Urnavicius, L., Bullock, S.L. and Carter, A.P. (2014)
    In vitro reconstitution of a highly processive recombinant human dynein complex.
    EMBO J 33: 1855-1868
  • Schmidt, H., Gleave, E.S. and Carter, A.P. (2012)
    Insights into dynein motor domain function from a 3.3-Å crystal structure.
    Nat Struct Mol Biol. 19(5): 492-497

Group Members

  • Ferdos Abid Ali
  • Sami Chaaban
  • Ennio d'Amico
  • Alex Fellows
  • Ellie Johnston
  • Giulia Manigrasso
  • Kashish Singh
  • Chris van Hoorn
  • Camilla Ventura Santos
  • Richard Wademan

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