Neurons were transfected with GFP, a marker for cytoplasmic volume, and stained for endogenous dynactin and dynein. In the distal neurite, we observed a striking enrichment of dynactin but not of dynein, as compared to soluble GFP (Figure 2A). We saw a similar distal enrichment of dynactin in primary cortical, motor, and dopaminergic neurons, suggesting that this is a generally conserved mechanism (Figure S2). Line-scan analysis of the DRG neurons showed that dynactin accumulates in the

distal neurite significantly more than dynein (Figure 2B). These data suggest that dynactin is specifically recruited and/or retained in the distal neurite. Next, we asked whether the CAP-Gly domain is necessary for this distal enrichment of dynactin. We overexpressed wild-type or ΔCAP-Gly p150Glued in primary DRG neurons using a bicistronic vector that also expresses GFP. Wild-type p150Glued selleck chemicals llc ABT-199 nmr was clearly enriched at the neurite tip, while neurons expressing ΔCAP-Gly p150Glued did not show a similar accumulation (Figure 2C). We quantified this difference using line-scan analysis and showed that wild-type p150Glued is significantly enriched over the

distal 10 μm of the neurite tip as compared to ΔCAP-Gly p150Glued (Figure 2D). These data demonstrate that the CAP-Gly domain functions to properly localize dynactin in the distal neurite. Motors from the kinesin superfamily, including kinesin-1 and kinesin-2, drive the fast axonal transport of vesicular cargos. The anterograde movement of cytosolic proteins via slow axonal transport is also dependent on kinesin-1 (Scott et al.,

2011). We therefore tested whether the distal enrichment of dynactin is dependent on kinesin-1 activity by expressing either the dominant-negative kinesin-1 inhibitor, KHC-tail, or the KHC-stalk, not which does not inhibit the motor and was used as a control (Konishi and Setou, 2009). We found that expression of KHC-tail disrupts the distal localization of dynactin, while expression of KHC-stalk had no effect on dynactin localization (Figure 3A). Line-scan analysis confirmed a significant difference in the distal accumulation of dynactin after expression of the KHC-tail, as compared to localization in neurons expressing either the vector and or the KHC-stalk (Figure 3B). Kinesin-1 has not been shown to directly interact with dynactin, nor did we observe co-immunoprecipitation of the motor with p150Glued expressed in COS7 cells (Figure S3). Thus the mechanism leading to kinesin-1-dependent distal localization of dynactin is likely to be indirect. In contrast, previous work has identified a direct interaction between kinesin-2 and p150Glued (Deacon et al., 2003). Therefore, we tested whether kinesin-2 may also contribute to the anterograde transport of dynactin. Expression of Kif3A-HL, a dominant-negative inhibitor of kinesin-2 lacking the motor domain (Nishimura et al.