Introduction 5

Introduction

Previous studies have located GTPases in a diverse array of bacteria and in all eukaryotes. GTPases are characterised by their use of GTP instead of ATP as a substrate. They are known to regulate many fundamental cellular processes such as translation, cell-signalling, intracellular trafficking and cytoskeletal re-organisation. The NKxD and Walker B motifs of GTPases specify the utilisation of GTP (Leipe, D. et. al. 2002). 1pujA (YlqF) is a known GTPase of Bacillus subtilis. It has previously been associated with the assembly of the 50S ribosomal subunit. Cells in which YlqF was inhibited showed slow growth and a build up of mis-folded 50S ribosomal subunits (Matsuo, Y et. al. 2006). Furthermore, the circular permutation of the NKxD motif N-terminal is characteristic of GTPases of the Ylqf/YawG family (Leipe, D. et. al. 2002). Computational biological methods will be applied to test the hypothesis that YlqF of Bacillus subtilis is a GTPase. In addition the prospect of YlqF’s involvement in 50S ribosomal assembly will be discussed.

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