Lysenko Elena, Ogura Teru, Cutting Simon M
Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6076, USA.
Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics, Kumamoto University School of Medicine, Kumamoto 862, Japan.
Microbiology (Reading). 1997 Mar;143 ( Pt 3):971-978. doi: 10.1099/00221287-143-3-971.
Members of the AAA-protein family are found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. These ATPases are involved in a number of diverse activities ranging from protein secretion to cell cycle control. This paper reports the functional analysis of the Bacillus subtilis ftsH gene, which encodes a member of this protein family. In cells containing reduced levels of a truncated FtsH protein cell growth was impaired under certain nutritional conditions. In a hypersaline environment FtsH was required in increased amounts for the cells' recovery from osmotic stress. In the absence of FtsH the abundance of several of the major penicillin-binding proteins (PBP2A and 2B) in the cytoplasmic membrane was affected. Lastly, it has been established that FtsH is required for entry into the developmental life cycle.
