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Nature 426, 507-508 (4 December 2003) | doi:10.1038/426507a

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Membrane trafficking: Coat control by curvature

Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz & Wei Liu

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The main transport vehicles inside cells are spherical vesicles that form when patches of membrane curve into buds and then pinch off. 'Coat' proteins both control, and are controlled by, this membrane curvature.

Many cells use small, membrane-bounded carriers — vesicles — to release and take up molecules and to move proteins between membrane-clad intracellular compartments. When and where a carrier forms within the cell, and what it contains, depends on a remarkable system of protein-based 'coats'1, 2.

  1. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz and Wei Liu are at the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.

Correspondence to: Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz Email: jlippin@helix.nih.gov