Abstract
In this short review, I describe a brief history of the discovery of myosin I isolated from Acanthamoeba in 1973 by Tom Pollard and Ed Korn. Today, myosins form a large “family tree” that includes more than 30 types of myosins. I discuss the importance of the relationship among actin, myosin, and other actin-binding proteins, many of which were pioneered by Pollard-san (“-san” is a Japanese honorific suffix showing respect, politeness and friendship). At the first conference devoted to actin, Pollard-san, Korn-san, and I discussed the importance of the nucleotide bound at the two ends of the actin filament. I conclude that life is a dynamic accumulation of molecule-molecule bindings, and although we do not yet know how they coordinate with each other to operate a living cell, many enthusiastic and excellent researchers like Pollard-san will unveil mechanisms that will show us what life really looks like.
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Acknowledgements
I thank the editors Cris dos Remedios and Enrique De La Cruz, who helped editing this short review. I am also grateful to Shin’ichi Ishiwata and Keiichi Namba for careful reading the manuscript. This short review is a translated transcription of my talk with Ikuko Fujiwara about Pollard-san.
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Fumio Oosawa declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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Oosawa, F. Discovery of myosin I and Pollard-san. Biophys Rev 10, 1481–1482 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-018-0485-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12551-018-0485-5