“…In mammals, two coatomer subunits come as two paralogs: g1-COP and g2-COP that share 80% protein sequence identity and that are encoded by the Copg1 and Copg2 genes 3 , and z1-COP and z2-COP encoded by the Copz1 and Copz2 genes 4 . In the COPII system, paralogs of the SEC24 subunit expand the cargo repertoire of COPII vesicles by providing distinct binding sites for specific sorting motifs 5,6,7,8,9 . By contrast, proteomics profiling of paralog-specific COPI vesicles generated in vitro from HeLa cells revealed no major difference in their cargo content 5 and to date no specialized function has been ascribed to the paralogous COP subunits, which until now have thus been considered as functionally redundant.…”