Palaeontological evidence of membrane relationship in step-by-step membrane fusion

Abstract

Studies on membrane fusion in living cells indicate that initiation of membrane fusion is a transient and hard to capture process. Despite previous research, membrane behaviour at this point is still poorly understood. Recent palaeobotanical research has revealed snapshots of membrane fusion in a 15-million-year-old fossil pinaceous cone. To reveal the membrane behaviour during the fusion, we conducted more observations on the same fossil material. Several discernible steps of membrane fusion have been fixed naturally and observed in the fossil material. This observation provides transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of the transient intermediate stage and clearly shows the relationship between membranes. Observing such a transient phenomenon in fossil material implies that the fixing was most likely accomplished quickly by a natural process. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is clearly worthy of further enquiry.

Keywords::

• Membrane
• relationship
• fusion
• quick
• fixing
• lightning

Acknowledgements

We thank Ms Chunzhao Wang, Mr Erjun Zhuo, and Ms Cuiling He for their help during this research, and Ms Margaret Joyner for help with English. We appreciate two anonymous reviewers for the detailed and constructive suggestions.

Declaration of interest: This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40772006, 40632010 and J0630967), Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-154), State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology (20102108, 20101104), and Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.