Disease relevance of ATFIM1

• cDNA clones encoding 1,3-beta-glucanase and a fimbrin-like cytoskeletal protein are induced by Al toxicity in wheat roots [1].

High impact information on ATFIM1

• Villin and fimbrin are the best characterized actin-filament bundling or cross-linking proteins in plants and each is encoded by a multigene family of five members in Arabidopsis thaliana [2].
• A green fluorescent protein fusion to actin-binding domain 2 of Arabidopsis fimbrin highlights new features of a dynamic actin cytoskeleton in live plant cells [3].
• A second partial cDNA clone showed similarity to genes encoding cytoskeletal fimbrin-like (actin-bundling) proteins [1].
• These data establish AtFim1 as a bona fide member of the fimbrin/plastin family, and represent the first use of a plant actin-binding protein as a powerful cytological tool for tracking the spatial and temporal redistribution of actin filaments in individual cells [4].
• Fluorescent-fimbrin decorated an array of fine actin filaments in the cortical cytoplasm of stamen hair cells, which were shown with time-course studies to be highly dynamic [4].

Biological context of ATFIM1

• Northern blot analysis and reverse-transcription PCR (RT-PCR) demonstrated that ATFIM1 is expressed in all major organs examined (roots, leaves, stems, flowers and siliques) [5].
• ATFIM1 is encoded by a single gene, although sequencing of two partial fimbrin-like expressed sequence tag (EST) clones indicates that Arabidopsis contains at least two fimbrin-like proteins [5].
• Cytoplasmic streaming and auxin transport were chosen as examples of cargo movement and investigated in two Arabidopsis thaliana lines stably transformed with fluorescently labelled talin (GFP-mTn) or fimbrin (GFP-FABD2) [6].
• In Tetrahymena, fimbrin is localized in the cleavage furrow during cytokinesis [7].
• The results indicate that the genomic DNA possesses 9 introns and that both the gene and transcript of Tetrahymena fimbrin-like protein are single [8].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of ATFIM1

• Here we report the cloning by degenerate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of ATFIM1, a 2.3 kb cDNA from Arabidopsis thaliana that codes for a novel 76 kDa fimbrin-like polypeptide (AtFim1) [5].
• Molecular cloning of a novel fimbrin-like cDNA from Arabidopsis thaliana [5].

References