Bacterial major vault protein homologs form divergent vault structures

CryoEM shows an intact vault from Corallococcus praedator and a half-vault from a Deltaproteobacteria bacterium, with distinct barrel/cap symmetries D35/C13 and C48/C16.

• Why it matters: Vaults are large MVP-based complexes with many proposed roles, but how MVP homologs behave outside eukaryotes—and whether bacteria form vaults—remained unclear.
• What they did: The authors identified bacterial MVP homologs and determined cryoEM structures for an intact vault from Corallococcus praedator and a half-vault from a Deltaproteobacteria bacterium.
• The result: The bacterial complexes assemble into vault-like architectures unlike previously characterized vaults, expanding known vault structural diversity across domains of life.

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