Proteases are highly important for cell survival. Among the large list of proteases present in plants, we are interested in the family of Filamentation temperature sensitive protein H (FtsH) enzymes, which are found in bacteria, animals and plants. Besides 12 genes encoding proteolytic active members of FtsH proteases in A. thaliana, there are 5 genes encoding for presumably proteolytically inactive proteases due to mutations in their active site; they are termed FtsHi. Despite their lack of proteolytic activity these FtsHi’s seem to be important for chloroplast and plant development, homozygous mutants of FtsHi are often embryo lethal. All five FtsHi´s are located in the chloroplast, most likely in its envelope membrane. We are elucidating the function of these presumably inactive FtsH variants. Our most recent results have been published in J. Exp. Bot. (Mishra et al., 2019).
Supervisor: Christiane Funk, Dept of Chemistry, UMU.
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