Molecular anatomy of a trafficking organelle

  • Cell. 2006 Nov 17;127(4):831-46. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2006.10.030.
Shigeo Takamori  1 ,  Matthew Holt ,  Katinka Stenius ,  Edward A Lemke ,  Mads Grønborg ,  Dietmar Riedel ,  Henning Urlaub ,  Stephan Schenck ,  Britta Brügger ,  Philippe Ringler ,  Shirley A Müller ,  Burkhard Rammner ,  Frauke Gräter ,  Jochen S Hub ,  Bert L De Groot ,  Gottfried Mieskes ,  Yoshinori Moriyama ,  Jürgen Klingauf ,  Helmut Grubmüller ,  John Heuser ,  Felix Wieland ,  Reinhard Jahn
Affiliations
  • 1. Department of Neurobiology, Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
PMID: 17110340 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2006.10.030
Abstract

Membrane traffic in eukaryotic cells involves transport of vesicles that bud from a donor compartment and fuse with an acceptor compartment. Common principles of budding and fusion have emerged, and many of the proteins involved in these events are now known. However, a detailed picture of an entire trafficking organelle is not yet available. Using synaptic vesicles as a model, we have now determined the protein and lipid composition; measured vesicle size, density, and mass; calculated the average protein and lipid mass per vesicle; and determined the copy number of more than a dozen major constituents. A model has been constructed that integrates all quantitative data and includes structural models of abundant proteins. Synaptic vesicles are dominated by proteins, possess a surprising diversity of trafficking proteins, and, with the exception of the V-ATPase that is present in only one to two copies, contain numerous copies of proteins essential for membrane traffic and neurotransmitter uptake.