Bacterial α2-macroglobulins: colonization factors acquired by horizontal gene transfer from the metazoan genome?

Aidan Budd*, Stephanie Blandin*, Elena A Levashina† and Toby J Gibson* Addresses: *European Molecular Biology Laboratory, 69012 Heidelberg, Germany. †UPR 9022 du CNRS, IBMC, rue René Descartes, F-67087 Strasbourg CEDEX, France. Correspondence: Toby J Gibson. E-mail: toby.gibson@embl.de reviews Published: 26 May 2004 Genome Biology 2004, 5:R38 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http://genomebiology.com/2004/5/6/R38 Received: 20 February 2004 Revised: 2 April 2004 Accepted: 8 April 2004 © 2004 Budd et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose,...