Coltharp Carla, Xiao Jie
Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Bioessays. 2017 Jan;39(1):1-11. doi: 10.1002/bies.201600179. Epub 2016 Nov 7.
We propose that the essential function of the most highly conserved protein in bacterial cytokinesis, FtsZ, is not to generate a mechanical force to drive cell division. Rather, we suggest that FtsZ acts as a signal-processing hub to coordinate cell wall synthesis at the division septum with a diverse array of cellular processes, ensuring that the cell divides smoothly at the correct time and place, and with the correct septum morphology. Here, we explore how the polymerization properties of FtsZ, which have been widely attributed to force generation, can also be advantageous in this signal processing role. We suggest mechanisms by which FtsZ senses and integrates both mechanical and biochemical signals, and conclude by proposing experiments to investigate how FtsZ contributes to the remarkable spatial and temporal precision of bacterial cytokinesis.
我们提出，细菌胞质分裂中最保守的蛋白质FtsZ的基本功能并非产生机械力来驱动细胞分裂。相反，我们认为FtsZ作为一个信号处理中心，在隔膜处协调细胞壁合成与各种细胞过程，确保细胞在正确的时间和地点顺利分裂，并具有正确的隔膜形态。在此，我们探讨了FtsZ的聚合特性（这一特性一直被广泛认为与力的产生有关）如何在这一信号处理角色中也具有优势。我们提出了FtsZ感知和整合机械信号和生化信号的机制，并通过提出实验来研究FtsZ如何对细菌胞质分裂显著的时空精度做出贡献来得出结论。
