SecA-a New Twist in the Tale.

A paper published in this issue of the Journal of Bacteriology (D. Huber, M. Jamshad, R. Hanmer, D. Schibich, K. Döring, I. Marcomini, G. Kramer, and B. Bukau, J Bacteriol 199:e0622-16, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.00622-16) provides us with a timely reminder that all is not as clear as we had previously thought in the general bacterial secretion system. The paper describes a new mode of secretion through the Sec system-"uncoupled cotranslocation"-for the passage of proteins across the bacterial inner membrane and suggests that we might rethink the nature and mechanism of the targeting and transport steps toward protein export.