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Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Fission Yeast as a Platform for Antibacterial Drug Screens Targeting Bacterial Cytoskeleton Proteins
Published on: April 26, 2024
Three's company: the fission yeast actin cytoskeleton
David R Kovar1, Vladimir Sirotkin, Matthew Lord
1Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. drkovar@uchicago.edu
None:
How the actin cytoskeleton assembles into different structures to drive diverse cellular processes is a fundamental cell biological question. In addition to orchestrating the appropriate combination of regulators and actin-binding proteins, different actin-based structures must insulate themselves from one another to maintain specificity within a crowded cytoplasm. Actin specification is particularly challenging in complex eukaryotes where a multitude of protein isoforms and actin structures operate within the same cell. Fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe possesses a single actin isoform that functions in three distinct structures throughout the cell cycle. In this review we explore recent studies in fission yeast that help unravel how different actin structures operate in cells.
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