{"doi":"10.1093/bib/bbaf144","title":"Elucidating the interactions between Kinesin-5/BimC and the microtubule: insights from TIRF microscopy and molecular dynamics simulations","abstract":"Kinesin-5 s are bipolar motor proteins that contribute to cell division by crosslinking and sliding apart antiparallel microtubules inside the mitotic spindle. However, the mechanism underlying the interactions between kinesin-5 and the microtubule remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the binding of BimC, a kinesin-5 motor from Aspergillus nidulans, to the microtubule using a combination of total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. TIRF microscopy experiments revealed that increasing the concentration of KCl in the motility buffer from 0 mM to 150 mM completely abolishes the ability of BimC to bind to the microtubule. Consistent with this experimental finding, MD simulations demonstrated a significant reduction in the strength of electrostatic interactions between BimC and microtubules at 150 mM KCl compared to 0 mM KCl. Furthermore, we identified several salt bridges at the BimC-microtubule interface, with positively charged residues on BimC interacting with negatively charged residues on the tubulin heterodimer. These results provide mechanistic insights into the role of electrostatic interactions in kinesin-5-microtubule binding, advancing our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of kinesin-5 motility.","journal":"Briefings in Bioinformatics","year":2025,"id":530591,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9558,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":16522,"name":"Yuan Gao","orcid":"0000-0002-0507-6499","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1410239,"name":"Dan Du","orcid":"0000-0002-3470-2890","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":900258,"name":"Jason E. Sanchez","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1275025,"name":"Yupeng Li","orcid":"0000-0001-5403-5880","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1410240,"name":"Weihong Qiu","orcid":"0000-0002-0832-5593","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274737,"name":"Lin Li","orcid":"0000-0001-6447-2398","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488954,"name":"Wenhan Guo","orcid":"0000-0002-6767-075X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":63,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:51:05.836974Z","pmid":"40172259","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}