Tubulin Homologs in Bacteria and Archaea

While cytoskeletal proteins have long been considered to be present only in eukaryotes, but not in prokaryotes, homologs of the major cytoskeletal proteins, including tubulin, have been discovered in bacteria and archaea in the last 30 years. The properties of tubulin homologs, as well as of the cytoskeleton-like structures they form in prokaryotic cells, vary and differ significantly from the relevant properties of eukaryotic tubulins. The comparison of prokaryotic tubulin homologs with each other seems therefore to be an interesting task and thus is the goal of the current review. We consider such tubulin homologs found in bacteria and archaea as FtsZ, TubZ, PhuZ, BtubA/BtubB, CetZ, etc. The ability of various tubulin homologs to act as targets for pharmaceuticals, similar to the FtsZ protein, which is already a target for promising antibiotics, is also discussed.