Impact of live cell imaging on coated vesicle research.
The role of membrane traffic is to transfer cargo between distinct subcellular compartments. Each individual trafficking event involves the creation, transport and fusion of vesicular and tubular carriers that are formed and regulated via cytoplasmic coat protein complexes. The dynamic nature of this process is therefore highly suitable for studying using live cell imaging techniques. Although these approaches have raised further questions for the field, they have also been instrumental in providing essential new information, in particular relating to the morphology of transport carriers and the exchange kinetics of coat proteins and their regulators on membranes. Here, we present an overview of live cell-imaging experiments that have been used in the study of coated-vesicle transport, and provide specific examples of their impact on our understanding of coat function.
Wessels
Els
E
Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. wessels@embl.de
Simpson
Jeremy C
JC
D000818:Animals; D002966:Clathrin / Q000502:physiology; D020755:Coat Protein Complex I / Q000502:physiology; D018699:Coated Vesicles / Q000502:physiology*; D004705:Endocytosis / Q000502:physiology*; D004721:Endoplasmic Reticulum / Q000502:physiology*; D006056:Golgi Apparatus / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans
D002966:Clathrin; D020755:Coat Protein Complex I