Reviews: Conventional and unconventional protein secretion ($)

Two reviews in the Journal of Experimental Botany provide updates about protein secretion from plant cells. Wang et al. (10.1093/jxb/erx262) describe the conventional and unconventional pathways of protein secretion.  The conventional pathway for protein secretion starts with insertion of the nascent protein into the endoplasmic reticulum, followed by passage trough the Golgi en route to the cell surface in vesicles. More recently, the “unconventional” protein secretion pathway has been described, first in yeast and animal cells and more recently in plants. Proteins secreted via the unconventional pathway lack leader sequences and may or may not be delivered to the cell surface in vesicles.  The authors describe different types of unconventional secretion and techniques for the study of this process. In a separate review article, Rodriguez-Furlan et al. (10.1093/jxb/erx261) describe how chemical tools and can be used to study unconventional protein secretion.