Myosin is a well-studied molecular motor protein that walks along actin filaments to achieve cellular tasks such as movement of cargo proteins.
It couples ATP hydrolysis to highly-coordinated conformational changes that result in a power-stroke motion, or "walking" of the myosin. Communication between a set of residues must link the three functional regions of myosin and transduce energy: the catalytic ATP binding region, the lever arm, and the actin-binding domain. Experiments have shown that 3 highly-conserved sequence regions are critical for energy transmission (P Loop, Switch I, and Switch II). We are investigating whether and how residues in these regions are participating in the energy pathways.