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AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Fig. 1. Parts of a neuron.
independent units, a central manufacturing facility called the cell body and an information relay station called the synapse. A majority of raw materials required for the functioning of the synapse were manufactured in the cell body.
A long canal, called an axon, connected the two units. Kinesin’s job was to collect a huge cargo every day. This cargo, colloquially referred to as a ‘vesicle’, had
to be transported from the cell
body via an axon and delivered
to the synapse. Her job, though
quite mundane, was surely
an important one! If the raw
materials she carried were not
supplied at the right time to the
right place, the relay centre
wouldn’t function well. It might
even shut down! Whenever
Kinesin had this thought, she
shuddered with fear. She had
heard dreadful stories about
a dysfunctional relay centre
leading to a dysfunctional
neuron, which, in turn, severely
affected the B.R.A.I.N. function. Such a B.R.A.I.N. used to be declared as diseased and called by names such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Kinesin, therefore, always worked diligently with one aim: to deliver her cargo at the synapse efficiently. Delivering a vesicle would have been easy if the road was smooth.
However, this wasn’t the case. The axon was full of obstacles. The one thought that was always predominant in Kinesin’s head was – ‘How am I going to navigate such a complex road to reach the synapse on time?’ This question sounds too familiar, isn’t it? We have the same question in our minds every morning when we navigate roads with heavy traffic to reach school, college or office on time. I was curious to know what was happening inside the neuron, and if there were any similarities between the ways in which Kinesin and we tackle them? I became all the more curious about this research problem when I realized that in a neuron, there was not just one Kinesin, which moved with a vesicle, but hundreds of them. And, it did not end there. . Vesicles were carried in both directions; Kinesin carried them from the cell body to the synapse, and Dynein carried them from the synapse to the cell body. Therefore, both Kinesin and Dynein faced these blocks on their way. This problem that hundreds of Kinesins and Dyneins
were facing then became my research problem!
For keeping it all slightly simple, let’s focus on just the Kinesin and the vesicle it carried, for now! The first step in addressing this research problem was to see Kinesins in action in a neuron and better in a live organism! Little transparent worms called Caenorhabditis. elegans made that possible for me. When I said little, I referred to worms just 1 mm long, and when I said transparent, I meant you could see everything inside them (Check out that
picture)! Therefore, C. elegans became my
Image Courtesy: Hyman Lab
Multiple neurons worked together to keep the B.R.A.I.N. functional. Each neuron had two independent units, a central manufacturing facility called the cell body and an information relay station called the synapse. A majority of raw materials required for the functioning of the synapse were manufactured in the cell body.