Dynamic behaviour of the head-tail junction of myosin

It has generally been supposed that flexibility in the head-tail junction of myosin is provided by free rotation around the bonds of the polypeptide backbone of a few amino acid residues, but direct evidence for this is lacking. Here it is shown that the binding of an antibody in this region reveals a novel structure in which the bases of the heads are separated by 10 nm with concomitant 9 nm shortening of the tail and movement of the sites of sharp bends in the tail a similar distance towards the heads. These results suggest that the junction is a dynamic structure in which between 60 and 130 residues of the coiled coil can separate to allow the heads to move apart. They suggest a site for the series elastic element of the cross-bridge, and have implications for the interactions of the two heads with actin subunits in the thin filaments, and the mechanism of movement of other two-headed motor proteins, such as kinesins. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited