The exocytotic fusion pore and neurotransmitter release

摘要: Membrane fusion is ubiquitous in biological systems, occurring the simplest of unicellular eukaryotes as well higher eukaryotes. As soon first primitive eukaryotic cell utilized a lipid bilayer an outer membrane, membrane (and fission) became necessary for traffic material from outside to inside, inside outside, and between different intracellular membrane-bounded compartments. The earliest cells would have made use intrinsic ability bilayers fuse under certain conditions. Although this fusogenic property has been known some time, it become clear only relatively recently that two phospholipid will spontaneously, owing hydrophobic force, when are brought close together conditions tension or high curvature (Helm Israelachvili, 1993). primeval used proteins develop appropriate architecture which such occur regulated manner. During course evolution, ever more sophisticated ways regulating basic process evolve, but underlying mechanism remain unchanged. We proposed macromolecular scaffold responsible bringing plasma secretory granule membranes creating enables force cause (Figure 1; Nanavati et al., 1992; Monck Fernandez, Oberhauser Evidence now accumulating there several highly conserved families associated with vesicle events, yeast mammalian cells, traffic, exocytosis synaptic transmission (Bennett Scheller, 1993; Sollner Sudhof molecular structures (or scaffolds) regulate likely contain related share fundamental properties.