Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Bacteria with a Complex Endomembrane System

That is it, our last paper is out, Santarella-Mellwig et al., PLoS Biology 2013. In this paper, we investigated the three-dimensional organization of the complex endomembrane system in the planctomycete bacterium Gemmata obscuriglobus. We reveal that the G. obscuriglobus cells are neither compartmentalized nor nucleated, contrary to previous claims, as none of the spaces created by the membrane invaginations is topologically closed; instead, they are all interconnected. The organization of cellular space is similar to that of a classical Gram-negative bacterium modified by the presence of large invaginations of the inner membrane inside the cytoplasm. Thus, the membrane organization of G. obscuriglobus, and most likely all PVC members, is not fundamentally different from, but is rather an extension of, the “classical” Gram-negative bacterial membrane system.

See also the blog post cleaverly entitled Bacterium excluded from the Eukaryote Club