Skip to main content

REVIEW article

Front. Physiol.
Sec. Striated Muscle Physiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2024.1390186
This article is part of the Research Topic Unconventional Myosins in Motile and Contractile Functions: Fifty Years on the Stage View all 9 articles

One must reconstitute the functions of interest from purified proteins

Provisionally accepted
James A. Spudich James A. Spudich 1,2*
  • 1 Stanford University, Stanford, United States
  • 2 School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    I am often asked by students and younger colleagues and now by the editors of this issue to tell the history of the development of the in vitro motility assay and the dual-beam single-molecule laser trap assay for myosin-driven actin filament movement, used widely as key assays for understanding how both muscle and nonmuscle myosin molecular motors work. As for all discoveries, the history of the development of the myosin assays involves many people who are not authors of the final publications, but without whom the assays would not have been developed as they are. Also, early experiences shape how one develops ideas and experiments, and influence future discoveries in major ways. I am pleased here to trace my own path and acknowledge the many individuals involved and my early science experiences that led to the work I and my students, postdoctoral fellows, and sabbatical visitors did to develop these assays. Mentors are too often overlooked in historical descriptions of discoveries, and my story starts with those who mentored me.

    Keywords: Myosin, Actin, Dictyostelium, Motility assay, Single molecule assay, interdisciplinary research

    Received: 22 Feb 2024; Accepted: 01 Apr 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Spudich. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: James A. Spudich, Stanford University, Stanford, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.