Direction of Motion
Motor proteins travel in a specific direction along a microtubule. This is because the microtubule is polar and the heads only bind to the microtubule in one orientation, while ATP binding gives each step its direction through a process known as neck linker zippering.
Most kinesins walk towards the plus end of a microtubule which, in most cells, entails transporting cargo from the centre of the cell towards the periphery. This form of transport is known as anterograde transport/orthrograde transport. Kinesin-14 family proteins, such as Drosophila melanogaster NCD, budding yeast KAR3, and Arabidopsis thaliana ATK5, walk in the opposite direction, toward microtubule minus ends.
A different type of motor protein known as dyneins, move towards the minus end of the microtubule. Thus they transport cargo from the periphery of the cell towards the centre, for example from the terminal buttons of a neuronal axon to the cell body (soma). This is known as retrograde transport.
Read more about this topic: Kinesin
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