ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to in vitro motility assays, in vitro reconstitution of axonemes in a bottom up strategy and some application of dynein motility in physics of collective motion. In vitro motility assays further provide opportunities to harness protein motors to power nanometer- or micrometer-scale devices. Application of in vitro motility assays to study on collective motion of self-propelled particles is another trend in science. In physiological experiments on motility of dynein arms, protease-treated axonemes of sea urchin sperm flagella showed sliding disintegration of doublet microtubules in the presence of ATP. T. Oda et al. showed that binding of streptavidin to radial spoke heads caused paralysis of flagella, and that the motility defect in a central pair projection mutant could be rescued by the addition of exogenous protein tags on radial spoke heads. Axonemal dyneins are the force generating ATPases of eukaryotic cilia and flagella.
