“…Our studies revealed that A. thaliana devoid of FTSH4, one of the mitochondrial inner membrane ATP-dependent proteases, displays a delay in seed germination (Gibala et al, 2009 ), however, to date no further in-depth research has been implemented to characterize molecular bases of this dysfunction and, in consequence, to define the role of FTSH4 in Arabidopsis seeds. So far, the function of the FTSH4 protease was extensively studied only during the post - germination growth phase and largely under stress conditions (Kolodziejczak et al, 2007 ; Gibala et al, 2009 ; Kicia et al, 2010 ; Zhang et al, 2014a , b ; Dolzblasz et al, 2016 ; Hong et al, 2016 ; Smakowska et al, 2016 ; Opalinska et al, 2017a , b ; Zhang et al, 2017 ). We found that a lack of FTSH4 leads to oxidative stress, a decreased activity and abundance of mitochondrial complexes I and V, a lowered amount of cardiolipin, and an alteration in protein import through the inner membrane translocase TIM17:23.…”