The answer is yes. How do they do that? The recycling process of plants is called endocytosis and is based on the movement of molecules into the cell. Now, thanks to a team of scientists led by the Institute VIB (The Flanders Institute for Biotechnology), the University of Ghent (Belgium), and the Max Planck Institute (Germany) has managed to identify a new complex of adapter proteins, essential in this process and found only in the plants. The results of the study have been published in the journal Cell.
The new complex, called TPLATE, is part of a small number of adapter proteins that confirms a great discovery in evolutionary terms, since research focused on the endocytosis of plants, animals and yeast has been carried out for decades and it is the first time In the history we discover a protein complex that exists exclusively in plants.
The complex is made up of the TPLATE protein and seven other proteins not described so far. This protein complex has proved to be essential for plant endocytosis since it is the first to reach the area of the membrane where endocytosis must begin, since the cell has to constantly adjust the lipid and protein composition of its membrane; and, for this, old proteins are eliminated or recycled when new proteins are incorporated in the process.
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