title: Membrane tethering in intracellular transport.
abstract: Studies of various membrane trafficking steps over the past year indicate that membranes are tethered together prior to the interaction of v-SNAREs and t-SNAREs across the membrane junction. The tethering proteins identified to date are quite large, being either fibrous proteins or multimeric protein complexes. The tethering factors employed at different steps are evolutionarily unrelated, yet their function seems to be closely tied to the more highly conserved Rab GTPases. Tethering factors may collaborate with Rabs and SNAREs to generate targeting specificity in the secretory pathway.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. gwaters@molbio.princeton.edu
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Waters
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Pfeffer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001692:Biological Transport; D011992:Endosomes; D006056:Golgi Apparatus / Q000378:metabolism; D007425:Intracellular Membranes / Q000378:metabolism*; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D050600:SNARE Proteins; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae; D014617:Vacuoles; D033921:Vesicular Transport Proteins
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins; D050600:SNARE Proteins; D033921:Vesicular Transport Proteins