F-Tractin is a cellular probe for filamentous actin. It consists of a portion of the amino terminal actin binding region of the rat protein

ITPKA Inositol-trisphosphate 3-kinase A is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''ITPKA'' gene. Structure ITPKA is one of three inositol-trisphosphate 3-kinase (ITP3K) genes in humans. ITP3K proteins regulate inositol phosphate metabolism by p ...

, usually fused to a reporter such as

green fluorescent protein The green fluorescent protein (GFP) is a protein that exhibits bright green fluorescence when exposed to light in the blue to ultraviolet range. The label ''GFP'' traditionally refers to the protein first isolated from the jellyfish ''Aequorea ...

. Initial studies determined that amino acids 9-52 from the rat ITPKA were useful as a live-cell reporter for actin filaments. Later studies determined that amino acids 9-40 were sufficient for F-actin binding. F-Tractin is one of a number of F-actin probes useful in live cell imaging.

References

Actin-based structures {{molecular-biology-stub