Analysis of the γ-tubulin sequences: implications for the functional properties of γ-tubulin

γ-Tubulin was initially identified as a suppressor of an Aspergillus β-tubulin mutation (Oakley and Oakley, 1989). Highly homologous genes have since been identified in a variety of other eucaryotes (see Tables 1 and 2), and immunofluorescence studies have confirmed that γ-tubulin is expressed in a wide variety of eucaryotic cells. These observations indicate that γ-tubulin is functionally important, and this has been confirmed by mutational analysis (Oakley et al., 1990; Horio and Oakley, 1994) and by the elegant demonstration that the human γ-tubulin gene product supports the growth and division of Schizosaccharomyces pombe (Horio and Oakley, 1994).