Depletion of kinesin-12, a myosin-IIB-interacting protein, promotes migration of cortical astrocytes

Kinesin-12 (also named Kif15) participates in important events during neuronal development, such as cell division of neuronal precursors, migration of young neurons and establishment of axons and dendritic arbors, by regulating microtubule organization. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms behind the functions of kinesin-12, and even less is known about its roles in other cell types of the nervous system. Here, we show that kinesin-12 depletion from cultured rat cortical astrocytes decreases cell proliferation but increases migration. Co-immunoprecipitation, GST pulldown and small interfering RNA (siRNA) experiments indicated that kinesin-12 directly interacts with myosin-IIB through their tail domains. Immunofluorescence analyses indicated that kinesin-12 and myosin-IIB colocalize in the lamellar region of astrocytes, and fluorescence resonance energy transfer analyses revealed an interaction between the two. The phosphorylation at Thr1142 of kinesin-12 was vital for their interaction. Loss of their interaction through expression of a phosphorylation mutant of kinesin-12 promoted astrocyte migration. We suggest that kinesin-12 and myosin-IIB can form a hetero-oligomer that generates force to integrate microtubules and actin filaments in certain regions of cells, and in the case of astrocytes, that this interaction can modulate their migration.