Kinesin, the founder member of the family, is involved in vesicular transport within the cell and moves rapidly and specifically to the plus ends of microtubules.
Mitosis is one process which is absolutely dependent on the function of kinesin related proteins.
It has been suggested that microtubule motor molecules at the kinetochore are at least partly responsible for the force generation required to move mitotic chromosomes. CENP-E in particular has been implicated in this process. Due to the conflicting data, it has been difficult to determine CENP-E's role in mitosis. I will discuss the purification of CENP-E and its microtubule motor characteristics.