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Nature 426, 775-776 (18 December 2003) | doi:10.1038/426775a

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Cell biology: Earthworms and lipid couriers

Sean Munro1

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Lipids can hop between cellular compartments without using the transport vesicles that carry proteins. A key molecule involved in conveying the lipid ceramide has at last been uncovered.

Slice open any eukaryotic cell and you will find it packed with membrane-bounded compartments, each with a characteristic set of resident proteins and lipids. Many of these molecules begin their lives in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a large network of intracellular membranes.

  1. Sean Munro is at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QH, UK.
    Email: sean@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk