Prokaryotic homolog of tubulin? Consideration of FtsZ and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase as probable candidates.

The bacterial FtsZ protein has recently been suggested as a probable prokaryotic homolog of the tubulin family of proteins (Cell 80, 1995, 367-370). We have compared the sequence similarity of tubulins to FtsZ and another protein glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH). Both these proteins exhibited similar levels of sequence identity to the tubulins, which in a few cases was indicated to be significant. We report that incubation of …