Tubulin Acetylation Alone Does Not Affect Kinesin-1 Velocity and Run Length In Vitro

Kinesin-1 plays a major role in anterograde transport of intracellular cargo along microtubules. Currently, there is an ongoing debate of whether alpha-tubulin K40 acetylation directly enhances the velocity of kinesin-1 and its affinity to the microtubule track. We compared motor motility on microtubules reconstituted from acetylated and deacetylated tubulin. For both, single- and multi-motor in vitro motility assays, we demonstrate that tubulin acetylation alone does not affect kinesin-1 velocity and run length.