Biomolecular motors are typically studied in a top-down
approach, by observing the function, kinetics, and structure
of existing motors. Once one has developed a basic
understanding of motor function in this way, it is desirable
to test this understanding by attempting to construct a
motor from the bottom up. Of particular interest is the use
of proteins as building blocks, like biology. Here we
present such an ongoing approach. The ‘Tumbleweed’, a
synthetic protein motor designed to move along a linear
track [1]. This concept uses three discrete ligand-dependent
DNA-binding domains to perform rectified diffusion along a
synthesized DNA molecule. I will present the motor concept
and give an overview on its experimental realization. Then,
I will focus on modelling efforts  that were used to
understand the expected motor performance, and to guide its
optimization. 

[1] B. Bromley, N. Kuwada, M. Zuckermann, R. Donadini, L.
Samii, G. Blab, G. Gemmen, B. Lopez, P. Curmi, N. R. Forde,
D. N. Woolfson, and H. Linke, The Tumbleweed: Towards a
synthetic protein motor. HFSP J. 3, 204 (2009).

[2] N. Kuwada, G. Blab, and H. Linke, A Master equation
approach to modeling an articial protein motor
arxiv.org/abs/1004.1114, accepted by J. Chem. Phys.  (2010).

[3] Kuwada et al. Tuning the performance of an artificial
protein motor. Phys Rev E (2011) vol. 84 (3) pp. 031922