TY - JOUR T1 - Individual Molecular Motors use Low Forces to bypass Roadblocks during Collective Cargo Transport JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2021.01.12.425491 SP - 2021.01.12.425491 AU - Saurabh Shukla AU - Alice Troitskaia AU - Nikhila Swarna AU - Barun Kumar Maity AU - Marco Tjioe AU - Carol S Bookwalter AU - Lynn Chrin AU - Christopher L Berger AU - Kathleen M Trybus AU - Yann R Chemla AU - Paul R Selvin Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/13/2021.01.12.425491.abstract N2 - A cargo encounters many obstacles during its transport by molecular motors as it moves throughout the cell. Multiple motors on the cargo exert forces to steer the cargo to its destination. Measuring these forces is essential for understanding intracellular transport. Using kinesin as an example, we measured the force exerted by multiple stationary kinesins in vitro, driving a common microtubule. We find that individual kinesins generally exert less than a piconewton (pN) of force, even while bypassing obstacles, whether these are artificially placed 20-100 nm particles or tau, a Microtubule Associated Protein. We demonstrate that when a kinesin encounters an obstacle, the kinesin either becomes dislodged and then re-engages or switches protofilaments while the other kinesins continue to apply their (sub-)pN forces. By designing a high-throughput assay involving nanometer-resolved multicolor-fluorescence and a force-sensor able to measure picoNewtons of force, our technique is expected to be generally useful for many different types of molecular motors.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -