FtsZ

• UniProt: Q57816

FtsZ is an in bacteria, some archaea and in the chloroplasts of plants occurring protein that in cell division plays a role as a structural protein. It is considered a prokaryotic homolog of eukaryotic tubulin. FtsZ is encoded by the same gene ftsZ.

The name of FtsZ is derived from the acronym for " Filamenting temperature- sensitive mutant Z" from; these mutants of Escherichia coli grow as a result of a loss of function of the ftsZ gene and the consequent inability to filamentous cell division in the length.

Although the gene in 1950 by Y. Hirota et al. During their investigations on distribution disrupted E. coli mutant was discovered, the FtsZ protein was described later as the first representative of the prokaryotic cytoskeleton. 1991 postulated Erfei Bi and Joseph Lutkenhaus the involvement of FtsZ in the formation of the so -called Z - ring. By FtsZ forms a ring at the future position of the septum, to which further distribution -related proteins are recruited later, it initiates the bacterial division process.

1998 by Reski et al. patens discovered the first eukaryotic FtsZ proteins in Physcomitrella. These proteins play a role in the Plastidenteilung; they are encoded in the nucleus and have specific signal sequences for import into chloroplasts.