Engineering Biology lab at the University of Bristol

Smooth muscle cells are widespread in the human body, found in a range of tissues from the vasculature to the gut, airways, bladder and so on. They can be found as isolated cells or organised into syncytia (groups of cells). The organisation of the contractile cytoskeleton (smooth muscle actin and myosin filaments) is less well understood than that of striated (cardiac and skeletal) muscle. This review aims to explore what is known, the potential effects of mutations in smooth muscle actin, myosin and tropomyosin and how they lead to disease, and to highlight what we have still to learn about the smooth muscle contractile cytoskeleton.

Mechanism of the myosin inhibitor mavacamten is revealed by cryo-EM and cross-linking studies.

Smooth muscle cells are widespread in the human body, found in a range of tissues from the vasculature to the gut, airways, bladder and so on. They can be found as isolated cells or organised into syncytia (groups of cells). The organisation of the contractile cytoskeleton (smooth muscle actin and myosin filaments) is less well understood than that of striated (cardiac and skeletal) muscle. This review aims to explore what is known, the potential effects of mutations in smooth muscle actin, myosin and tropomyosin and how they lead to disease, and to highlight what we have still to learn about the smooth muscle contractile cytoskeleton.

Cargo-adaptor binding to the KLC-TPR domains binding triggers structural rearrangements that relieve kinesin-1 autoinhibition, enabling MAP7 recruitment, through an allosteric mechanism that connects ...

Kinesin-1 is an essential anterograde microtubule motor protein. The core kinesin motor is a homodimer of two heavy chains; N-terminal motor domains hydrolyse ATP and walk along microtubules, whilst a...

Determining the high-resolution structure of the widely expressed non-muscle myosin 2A (NM2A), in its dephosphorylated shutdown state, is important in understanding its regulation and disease roles. I...

A study using time-resolved cryogenic electron microscopy reveals the swinging lever mechanism of myosin, providing information on the molecular basis behind the production of force and movement by my...

PhD Project - Unravelling the mechanisms of cardiac myosin function in health and disease through molecular dynamic simulation and electron microscopy at University of Leeds, listed on FindAPhD.com