ArticlePLoS biology2011
Microtubules in bacteria: Ancient tubulins build a five-protofilament homolog of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton.
Article in PLoS biology, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 130 citations in OpenAlex.
- Eukaryotic-like microtubules and dynamic instability of Asgard archaeal tubulins.Science advances · 2026Article
- Structure and dynamics of a four-protofilament microtubule from Heimdallarchaeales α/β-tubulin.Science advances · 2026Article
- MaizeGDB Phylostrata Tool: exploring evolutionary origins of maize proteins.Bioinformatics advances · 2026Article
- The Diverse Activities and Mechanisms of the Acylphloroglucinol Antibiotic Rhodomyrtone: Antibacterial Activity and Beyond.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Nanoparticle-assisted tubulin assembly is environment dependent.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
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- The Crystal Structure of Tyrosinase fromBiomolecules · 2023Article
- Imaging Flow Cytometry for High-Throughput Phenotyping of Synthetic Cells.ACS synthetic biology · 2023Article
- Discovery of a Novel Inner Membrane-Associated Bacterial Structure Related to the Flagellar Type III Secretion System.Journal of bacteriology · 2022Article
- Virus-Induced Membrane Fusion in Neurodegenerative Disorders.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2022Review
- A digital health platform for assisting the diagnosis and monitoring of COVID-19 progression: An adjuvant approach for augmenting the antiviral response and mitigating the immune-mediated target organ damage.Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie · 2021Article
- Shaping Liposomes by Cell-Free Expressed Bacterial Microtubules.ACS synthetic biology · 2021Article
- Challenges and triumphs in cryo-electron tomography.iScience · 2021Review
- Reconciling Asgardarchaeota Phylogenetic Proximity to Eukaryotes and Planctomycetes Cellular Features in the Evolution of Life.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Phosphorylated tau targeted small-molecule PROTACs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and tauopathies.Biochimica et biophysica acta. Molecular basis of disease · 2021Review
- γ-Tubulin Complexes and Fibrillar Arrays: Two Conserved High Molecular Forms with Many Cellular Functions.Cells · 2021Review
- Nonlinear Elastic and Inelastic Properties of Cells.Journal of biomechanical engineering · 2020Review
- Introducing variability in targeting the microtubules: Review of current mechanisms and future directions in colchicine therapy.Pharmacology research & perspectives · 2020Review
- Preparing samples from whole cells using focused-ion-beam milling for cryo-electron tomography.Nature protocols · 2020Article
- Multidomain ribosomal protein trees and the planctobacterial origin of neomura (eukaryotes, archaebacteria).Protoplasma · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Microtubules play crucial roles in cytokinesis, transport, and motility, and are therefore superb targets for anti-cancer drugs. All tubulins evolved from a common ancestor they share with the distantly related bacterial cell division protein FtsZ, but while eukaryotic tubulins evolved into highly conserved microtubule-forming heterodimers, bacterial FtsZ presumably continued to function as single homopolymeric protofilaments as it does today. Microtubules have not previously been found in bacteria, and we lack insight into their evolution from the tubulin/FtsZ ancestor. Using electron cryomicroscopy, here we show that the tubulin homologs BtubA and BtubB form microtubules in bacteria and suggest these be referred to as "bacterial microtubules" (bMTs). bMTs share important features with their eukaryotic counterparts, such as straight protofilaments and similar protofilament interactions. bMTs are composed of only five protofilaments, however, instead of the 13 typical in eukaryotes. These and other results suggest that rather than being derived from modern eukaryotic tubulin, BtubA and BtubB arose from early tubulin intermediates that formed small microtubules. Since we show that bacterial microtubules can be produced in abundance in vitro without chaperones, they should be useful tools for tubulin research and drug screening.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.