The appearance of multicellular organisms was a revolutionary event that called for a multitude of novel proteins to ensure the communication among different cells, organs, and tissues. Of the proteins unique to multicellular organisms, the proteins of the blood coagulation, fibrinolytic, and complement cascades provided the first clear examples of this evolutionary stragegy. Analysis of the evolutionary history of these proteins has shown that the assembly process was facilitated by some unique features of the genes encoding the modules. The present review summarizes the most recent results of the analysis of the evolutionary history of the proteins of the blood coagulation, fibrinolytic, and complement systems
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László Patthy (1990) studied this question.