Species name： E. coli
Department of Cell Biology, Duke University Medical Center Masaki Osawa
FtsZ is a tubulin homolog and plays a pivotal role in bacterial division. It polymerizes in vitro into short protofilaments with GTP, which further assembles into a ring like structure at the division plane in the cell. This ring structure, the Z ring, is the division machinery for bacterial cells and contains a dozen other proteins (depending on the species) in addition to FtsZ. In this movie, E. coli division was captured by DIC (left) and the FtsZ distribution during the division was visualized by expressing low concentrations of FtsZ-YFP (FtsZ labeled with Yellow Fluorescent Protein)(right). Z rings constrict cells and the new Z rings appear in daughter cells just after completion of division or sometimes even before division (see cell #3). In this case (with nutrition rich media at 30 °C), the cell cycle was about 40 min. The duration of constriction is about 15 - 20 min, which can be inferred from combining the time lapse for multiple cells.
(2014.12.11)