Membrane constriction by Dynamin
The Dynamin tetramer binds a membrane and forms a filament, a right-handed helix around a membrane tube. The proposed stepping mechanism for membrane constriction involves a power stroke, that pulls the helical turns against each other, each step reducing the membrane tube radius by approximately 1 nm.
The animation introduces the domain structure of dynamin and the way it forms dimers and then a tetramer out of two dimers. The helical filament formation is shown from the front and the top, followed by the dimer formation of two G-domains from neighbouring turns. For the first power stroke the sequence of events are shown individually, for the second and third steps in a more synchronous coincidential way.
This was a project for and with Katja Faelber, Jeffrey Noel and Oliver Daumke - Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC), Berlin.
status: 2019