Inducible manipulation of motor-cargo interaction using engineered kinesin motors
Molecular motors drive long-range intracellular transport of various vesicles and other cargos within a cell. Identifying which kinesin motors interact with which type of transport vesicles has been challenging, especially in complex neuronal cells. Here, we present a highly adaptable toolbox of engineered kinesin motors to control and interrogate the selectivity and regulation of cargo transport with acute chemical induction. Selectivity of cargo-motor interaction can be addressed by systematic screening of a library of kinesin tails and neuronal cargos. Additionally, our toolbox can be used to study kinesin-cargo regulatory mechanisms, and we found that cargo trafficking by KIF16B is regulated by its PX-domain. Furthermore, our toolbox enables acute manipulation of polarized trafficking in living neurons by stirring transport into axons or dendrites. Engineering kinesin motors provides a powerful tool to map the specificity of interactions between kinesin and cargos, manipulate polarized transport and investigate cargo-motor interaction modes.