Faculty of Engineering, Gifu University, Gifu, 501-1193, Japan.
Department of Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 0C3, Canada.
Biosens Bioelectron. 2022 May 1;203:114011. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2022.114011. Epub 2022 Jan 19.
Motor proteins, such as myosin and kinesin, are biological molecular motors involved in force generation and intracellular transport in living cells. They were proposed to drive molecular shuttles for the active transport of analytes, thus significantly accelerating the sensing process of biosensors. Integrating motor proteins into biosensors requires their immobilisation on the operating surfaces. However, this process makes some motor proteins defective, slowing analyte detection. Here, we investigated the movements of molecular shuttles on surfaces in the presence of active and defective motors using a Brownian dynamics simulation, and elucidated the effects of defective motor proteins on the transport efficiency of the shuttles. We found that the motility of shuttles depends on the fraction of active motors relative to defective ones and that over 90% of the surface-bound motor proteins must remain active for efficient transport. The high fraction of active motors required for efficient transport can be attributed to the difference in the binding lifetimes of active and defective motors to shuttles. These results provide insights into how motors accumulate on sensor surfaces and set a guideline for the choice of polymer materials for biosensors powered by motor proteins.
马达蛋白，如肌球蛋白和驱动蛋白，是参与活细胞中力产生和细胞内运输的生物分子马达。它们被提议用于驱动分子梭子进行分析物的主动运输，从而显著加速生物传感器的传感过程。将马达蛋白整合到生物传感器中需要将其固定在操作表面上。然而，这个过程会使一些马达蛋白失效，从而减缓分析物的检测。在这里，我们使用布朗动力学模拟研究了在存在活性和失效马达的情况下表面上分子梭子的运动，并阐明了失效马达蛋白对梭子传输效率的影响。我们发现，梭子的运动取决于活性马达相对于失效马达的分数，并且超过 90%的表面结合马达蛋白必须保持活性才能实现有效的运输。对于有效的运输所需的高比例的活性马达可以归因于活性和失效马达与梭子的结合寿命的差异。这些结果深入了解了马达如何在传感器表面上积累，并为基于马达蛋白的生物传感器选择聚合物材料提供了指导。
