AutophAgIC puNCtum ArtICLe ADDeNDum
Communicative & Integrative Biology 3:6, 533-535; November/December 2010; ©2010 Landes Bioscience
Biogenesis of extracellular vesicles in yeast
Many questions with few answers
Débora L. Oliveira,1 Ernesto S. Nakayasu,2,† Luna S. Joffe,1 Allan J. Guimarães,3 Tiago J.P. Sobreira,4 Joshua D. Nosanchuk,3,5
Radames J.B. Cordero,5 Susana Frases,6 Arturo Casadevall,3,5 Igor C. Almeida,2 Leonardo Nimrichter1 and Marcio L. Rodrigues1,*
1
Laboratório de Estudos Integrados em Bioquímica Microbiana; Instituto de Microbiologia Professor Paulo de Góes; Rio de Janeiro; Brazil; 2The Border
Biomedical Research Center; Department of Biological Sciences; University of Texas at El Paso; El Paso, TX USA; Departments of 3Medicine and 5Microbiology
and Immunology; Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Bronx, New York USA; 4Laboratory of Genetics and Molecular Cardiology; Heart Institute (InCor);
University of Sao Paulo; São Paulo, SP Brazil; 6Laboratório de Biotecnologia; Instituto Nacional de Metrologia; Normalização e Qualidade Industrial; Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil
†
Current address: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Richland, WA USA
T he cellular events required for
unconventional protein secretion in
eukaryotic pathogens are beginning to be
convergence and divergence.7 Fungi and
prokaryotes are surrounded by thick cell
walls, a key difference in comparison with
revealed. In fungi, extracellular release mammalian and other eukaryotic cells
of proteins involves passage through (e.g., protozoa) that adds significant com-
the cell wall by mechanisms that are plexity to secretion systems in these organ-
poorly understood. In recent years, sev- isms. A number of mechanisms have been
eral studies demonstrated that yeast cells proposed for the trans-cell wall molecular
produce vesicles that traverse the cell transport in prokaryotes.8 In fungi, how-
wall to release a wide range of cellular ever, the mechanisms required for passage
components into the extracellular space. of molecules across the cell wall are poorly
These studies suggested that extracellu- understood. Recently, extracellular vesicle
lar vesicle release involves components of release has been described as a mechanism
both conventional and unconventional used by yeast cells to secrete many mol-
secretory pathways, although the precise ecules across the cell wall.9-12
Key words: secretion, extracellular mechanisms required for this process are Extracellular vesicles produced by
vesicles, exosome, trans-cell wall still unknown. We discuss here cellular fungal cells share morphological and bio-
transport, yeast box events that are candidates for regulating chemical similarities with mammalian
this interesting but elusive event in the exosomes,13,14 including an ability to mod-
Submitted: 06/21/10 biology of yeast cells. ulate the function of immune cells.15 Plant
Accepted: 06/21/10 cells also produce exosome-like vesicles,16
Protein secretion is a widely studied cel- supporting the notion that vesicular
Previously published online:
lular phenomenon. To reach the extracel- release is a mechanism of trans-cell wall
www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cib/
lular milieu, intracellularly synthesized passage shared by cell-wall containing
article/12756
proteins are targeted to the cell surface for eukaryotes. In contrast to what is observed
DOI: 10.4161/cib.3.6.12756 release to the extracellular space.1 In mam- for mammalian exosomes,17 the pathways
*Correspondence to: Marcio L. Rodrigues; malian cells, the plasma membrane is the required for extracellular vesicle biogenesis
Email: marcio@micro.ufrj.br final barrier to be crossed during secre- and release in both plant and fungal cells
tion. Such processes, which involve both remain virtually unknown. One remark-
Addendum to: Oliveira DL, Nakayasu ES, Joffe LS, conventional and unconventional mecha- able feature of mammalian exosomes and
Guimaraes AJ, Sobreira TJP, Nosanchuk JD, et al.
Characterization of yeast extracellular vesicles:
nisms, have been studied in detail and a fungal extracellular vesicles is the abun-
evidence for the participation of different path- number of excellent reviews are available dance of cytoplasmic proteins lacking a
ways of cellular traffic in vesicle biogenesis. PLoS in the literature.1-6 signal peptide that directs proteins to the
ONE 2010; 5:11113; PMID: 20559436; DOI: 0.1371/ Secretory systems in microbes endoplasmic reticulum in conventional
journal.pone.0011113. and mammalian cells show points of secretory processes.13,14,18-20
www.landesbioscience.com Communicative & Integrative Biology 533
