Generation of mechanical oscillations is ubiquitous to a wide variety of intracellular processes, ranging from activity of muscle fibers to oscillations of the mitotic spindle. The activity of motors plays a vital role in maintaining the integrity of the mitotic spindle structure and generating spontaneous oscillations. Although the structural features and properties of the individual motors are well characterized, their implications on the functional behavior of motor-filament complexes are more involved. We show that force-induced allosteric deformations in dynein, which result in catchbonding behavior, provide a generic mechanism to generate spontaneous oscillations in motor-cytoskeletal filament complexes. The resultant phase diagram of such motor-filament systems—characterized by force-induced allosteric deformations—exhibits bistability and sustained limit-cycle oscillations in biologically relevant regimes, such as for catchbonded dynein. The results reported here elucidate the central role of this mechanism in fashioning a distinctive stability behavior and oscillations in motor-filament complexes such as mitotic spindles.

机械振荡的产生普遍存在于各种细胞内过程，从肌肉纤维的活动到有丝分裂纺锤体的振荡。电机的活动在维持有丝分裂纺锤体结构的完整性和产生自发振荡方面起着至关重要的作用。尽管单个电机的结构特征和特性得到了很好的表征，但它们对电机丝复合物功能行为的影响更为重要。我们展示了动力蛋白中力诱导的变构变形，这导致了捕捉粘合行为，提供了一种在运动-细胞骨架丝复合物中产生自发振荡的通用机制。这种以力引起的变构变形为特征的运动-细丝系统的最终相图在生物学相关状态下表现出双稳态和持续的极限循环振荡，例如对于catchbonded dynein。这里报告的结果阐明了这种机制在形成独特的稳定性行为和运动-细丝复合物（如有丝分裂纺锤体）振荡中的核心作用。