![Assessing CDK5 as a Nanomotor for Chemotactic Drug Delivery](/rails/active_storage/representations/proxy/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBBcXNMIiwiZXhwIjpudWxsLCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--31eb528d54935da84dabf44c6cb2a10fb45d5738/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdCem9MWm05eWJXRjBTU0lJY0c1bkJqb0dSVlE2QzNKbGMybDZaVWtpRFRZd01IZzJNREErQmpzR1ZBPT0iLCJleHAiOm51bGwsInB1ciI6InZhcmlhdGlvbiJ9fQ==--33b2b080106a274a4ca568f8742d366d42f20c14/Figure%205.png)
Enzyme chemotaxis is a thermodynamic phenomenon in which enzymes move along a substrate concentration gradient towards regions with higher substrate concentrations and can be used to steer nanovehicles towards targets along natural substrate concentrations. In patients with Alzheimer’s disease, a gradient of tau protein forms in the bloodstream. Tau protein is a substrate of the enzyme CDK5, which catalyzes the phosphorylation of tau protein and can travel using chemotaxis along tau protein gradients to increasing concentrations of tau and amyloid-beta proteins. The authors hypothesized that CDK5 would be able to overcome these barriers of Brownian motion and developed a quantitative model using Michaelis-Menten kinetics to define the necessary parameters to confirm and characterize CDK5’s chemotactic behavior to establish its utility in drug delivery and other applications.
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