Myosin'S Powerstroke Occurs with Phosphate Still in the Active Site

Abstract

A fundamental property of myosin is its ability to harness the power of ATP hydrolysis to generate force. A key unanswered question is the timing of the force-generating powerstroke relative to phosphate (Pi) -release from its active site. We examined the ability of single-headed myosin Va (MV) construct to bind to actin and generate a powerstroke in a single molecule laser trap assay in the presence of elevated Pi. We examined both WT MV and the impact of a mutation (S217A) in the conserved switch I region of the active site which slows actin-activated Pi-release. Upon binding to actin WT myosin rapidly (>500/s) generated a 7±0.5 nm powerstroke. In the presence of 30mM Pi, no decrease in the size (7±0.4 nm) or delay in the rate of the development of the powerstroke (>500/s) was observed, however the average duration of strong actomyosin binding (ton) was reduced in the presence of Pi (240±20 vs 113± ms, p<0.05). The reduced ton is consistent with Pi rebinding to the active site and accelerating detachment from actin. Therefore, this suggests myosin generates the powerstroke with Pi still in the active site. S217A generated a powerstroke with a similar rate (>500/s) and size (9±0.9 nm) to the WT, but ton was shorter, but not significantly different, than WT (143±20 ms, p=0.22 and 62±5 ms, p<0.05 for S217A in the absence and presence of Pi, respectively). Since the S217A mutant slows actin-activated Pi-release from the active site our results fit best to a model in which the powerstroke occurs with Pi still in the active site. Together these findings suggest that actin-binding, and not the release of Pi from the active site, trigger the conformational changes that lead to the powerstroke, and thus force-generation by myosin.