PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Moé Yamada
AU  - Yohko Tanaka-Takiguchi
AU  - Masahito Hayashi
AU  - Momoko Nishina
AU  - Gohta Goshima
TI  - Multiple kinesin-14 family members drive microtubule minus-end-directed transport in plant cells
AID  - 10.1101/104471
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 104471
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/31/104471.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/31/104471.full
AB  - Minus-end-directed cargo transport along microtubules (MTs) is exclusively driven by the molecular motor dynein in a wide variety of cell types. Interestingly, plants have lost the genes encoding dynein during evolution; the MT motors that compensate for dynein function are unknown. Here, we show that two members of the kinesin-14 family drive minus-end-directed transport in plants. Gene knockout analyses of the moss Physcomitrella patens revealed that the plant-specific class-VI kinesin-14, KCBP, is required for minus-end-directed transport of the nucleus and chloroplasts. Purified KCBP directly bound to acidic phospholipids (PLs) and unidirectionally transported PL liposomes along MTs in vitro. Thus, minus-end-directed transport of membranous cargoes might be driven by their direct interaction with this motor protein. Newly nucleated cytoplasmic MTs represent another known cargo exhibiting minus-end-directed motility, and we identified the conserved class-I kinesin-14 (ATK) as the motor involved. These results suggest that kinesin-14 motors were duplicated and developed as alternative MT-based minus-end-directed transporters in land plants.