Access

News and Views

Nature 432, 568-569 (2 December 2004) | doi:10.1038/432568a; Published online 1 December 2004

Open Innovation Challenges

Cell biology:  Clathrin's Achilles' ankle

Frances M. Brodsky1

Top

The protein clathrin forms lattice-like coats on transport vesicles that bud from cell membranes. High-resolution models of the lattice reveal interactions involved in its disassembly once the vesicles have formed.

Cells are busy places, with membrane traffic moving in all directions — from the cell surface to internal compartments and back again, and from one compartment to another. The transport vehicles are tiny, membrane-bound spheres called vesicles, which bud off from the membrane that encloses a compartment (or the cell itself), and fuse with a target membrane.

  1. Frances M. Brodsky is in the Departments of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and Microbiology and Immunology, and the G. W. Hooper Foundation, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-0552, USA.
    Email: fmarbro@itsa.ucsf.edu