Regarding the presence of membrane coat proteins in bacteria: Confusion? What confusion? (Comment on DOI 10.1002/bies.201100045)

摘要

The Planctomycetes-VerrucomicrobiaChlamydia (PVC) superphylum is a bacterial group whose members present features that are usually not found in bacteria but are more often associated with eukaryotes or archaea. One such feature is the presence of a complex endomembrane system inside the cell, which is sustained by proteins (such as gp4978) that display structural similarities to the eukaryotic membrane coat (MC) proteins involved in coated vesicles (e.g. clathrin, COPII Sec31 and COPI subunits alpha and beta 0 ), as well as in the nuclear pore complex (e.g. nup85 and nup133) [1]. We and others have suggested that some of these bacterial features are related by vertical descent to their archaeal or eukaryotic counterparts, leading to alternative eukaryogenesis hypotheses [2–6].