Motor Clustering Enhances Kinesin-driven Vesicle Transport

Intracellular vesicles are typically transported by a small number of kinesin and dynein motors. However, the slow microtubule binding rate of kinesin-1 observed inin vitrobiophysical studies suggests that long-range transport may require a high number of motors. To address the discrepancy in motor requirements betweenin vivoandin vitrostudies, we reconstituted motility of 120-nm-diameter liposomes driven by multiple GFP-labeled kinesin-1 motors. Consistent with predictions based on previous binding rate measurements, we found that long-distance transport requires a high number of kinesin-1 motors. We hypothesized that this discrepancy fromin vivoobservations may arise from differences in motor organization and tested whether motor clustering can enhance transport efficiency using a DNA scaffold. Clustering just three motors improved liposome travel distances across a wide range of motor numbers. Our findings demonstrate that, independent of motor number, the arrangement of motors on a vesicle regulates transport distance, suggesting that differences in motor organization may explain the disparity betweenin vivoandin vitromotor requirements for long-range transport.