Eukaryotic behaviour of a prokaryotic energy‐transducing membrane: fully detached vesicular organelles arise by budding from the Rhodobacter sphaeroides intracytoplasmic photosynthetic membrane

Abstract

A major feature that distinguishes prokaryotic organisms from eukaryotes is their less complex internal structure, in which all membrane-associated functions are thought to be present within a continuous lipid-protein bilayer, rather than with distinct organelles. Contrary to this notion, as described by Tucker and co-workers in this issue of Molecular Microbiology, the application of cryo-electron tomography to the purple bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides has demonstrated a heretofore unrecognized ultrastructural complexity within the intracytoplasmic membrane (ICM) housing the photosynthetic apparatus. In addition to distinguishing invaginations of the cytoplasmic membrane (CM) and interconnected vesicular structures still attached to the CM, a eukaryote-like ICM budding process was revealed, which results in the formation of fully detached vesicular structures. These bacterial organelles are able to carry out both the light-harvesting and light-driven energy transduction activities necessary for the cells to assume a photosynthetic lifestyle. Their formation is shown to represent the final stage in a membrane invagination and growth process, originating with small CM indentations, which after cell disruption give rise to a membrane fraction that can be separated from mature ICM vesicles by rate-zone sedimentation.