Within the past ten years, inositol lipids have increasingly been implicated in membrane-transport processes. Three studies now show what connects one inositol lipid — phosphatidylinositol-3-phosphate, PtdIns(3)P — to endocytosis. It turns out that a protein called the early endosomal autoantigen EEA1 contains a domain called FYVE that can bind, specifically and directly, to PtdIns(P)3. What's more, EEA1 can also bind to Rab5, a protein involved in endocytosis.
- Claudia Wiedemann
- Shamshad Cockcroft