Catastrophic Kinesins: Piecing Together Their Mechanism by 3D Reconstruction

Kin Is, kinesins with an internal catalytic domain, de-polymerize microtubules from both ends, and the KIF2C crystal structure presented by Ogawa et al. (2004...)([this issue of Cell]) provides provocative evidence to support the theory that the highly conserved sequences are critical structural elements in these catastrophic kinesins.