WARSHAW MOLECULAR MOTORS GROUP

Molecular Motors and Their Regulation

Intracellular Cargo Transport

Heart Failure and Skeletal Muscle Function

The Warshaw Molecular Motors Group has two research foci directed at the structure and function of molecular motors and cytoskeletal proteins that modulate these motors’ ability to generate biological movement, ranging from muscle contraction to intracellular vesicular transport.

Molecular Motors and Cargo Transport

We investigate how myosin and kinesin molecular motors operate individually or in teams to transport intracellular cargo, such as insulin granules, along the cell’s actin and microtubule superhighways.

Heart Failure and Skeletal Muscle Function

We also investigate how muscle myosin’s interaction with actin is regulated to generate the force of both the heart's pumping action and skeletal muscle contraction. Specifically, we study how myosin binding protein-C (MyBP-C) modulates myosin’s mechanical power through its binding to both myosin and actin. Genetic mutations to MyBP‑C cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a devastating disease that results in sudden death in young individuals, as well as Distal Arthrogryposis in skeletal muscle. However, MyBP-C’s molecular mechanism of action is far from certain.

To address these two areas of research, we take a comparative approach by studying myosins that differ substantially in both their structural and functional capacities in order to match their physiological roles in biological motion. In addition, insight can be obtained from genetically mutated myosin motors and their modulatory protein, MyBP-C, that lead to inherited forms of human heart failure and skeletal muscle disease. With these model systems, we use the power of molecular biophysics, single molecule techniques, and Zebrafish models to characterize the molecular mechanisms driving biological motility.