I don't know why I am so excited about this paper. Maybe it's because it is the first paper I've read on the kinesin and microtubule subject that directly answered a question I had. - Andy Maloney

Really awesome review, Andy! I agree that the paper is very good and that kappa-casein looks very promising. I'm going to experiment with putting my comments here as opposed to the wiki talk page. - Steve Koch

My major question is: how did you answer your EGTA question? You find that the casein is to support kinesin activity. But did you find definitively that casein does not contribute calcium to the solution, and thus necessitate EGTA? You say, "Also, I was wrong about why we want to use EGTA," and I don't see how that's supported. I know from work of Andy Boal and Amanda Trent (and others) at Sandia that Ca++ is destructive to taxol-stabilized MTs as well. It's likely there is work prior to them as well - Steve Koch

As for pegylated lipids (or any other surface chemistry), I agree it's highly unlikely that casein is the best method. I agree with you too that you need to get good at the current state of the art before attempting to improve it. We need a place to list ideas of what to try. Some of these may be appropriate for summer undergraduate work, too. Related to the surface chemistry issue is Mr. Gunn's comment here: http://friendfeed.com/e... - Steve Koch

I just got a paper that says calcium affects Taxol stabilized microtubules so if you know first hand that calcium still depolymerizes them, then I'm game to say we need the EGTA. But, do we know how much calcium is in casein? From what I understand, calcium is stored in casein in the form of calcium phosphate which is not soluble in water. So, do we really need EGTA when the nonpolar calcium phosphate will stay in the nonpolar regions of casein? - Andy Maloney

Has anyone checked to see how much calcium is in solution after filtering casein through a 220 nm filter? If it's not there, then we don't need EGTA. Plus, if all we want to do is get rid of calcium in solution, then we should use Bapta since it has a crazy high affinity for calcium and not so much for magnesium. - Andy Maloney

It's quite possible that the EGTA / calcium / casein thing is entirely just from my musings. I don't recall anyone else saying that. And I didn't know about the insoluble calcium phosphate form... - Steve Koch