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Cell biology

Lipid membranes shape up

Nature volume 401, pages 123–124 (1999)Cite this article

Nervous transmission depends on the rapid fusion of neurotransmitter-laden vesicles with the presynaptic plasma membrane. The released neurotransmitter diffuses across the gap between two nerve cells (the synapse), while the non-cargo components of the fused vesicle are retrieved from the presynaptic membrane in a process called synaptic-vesicle recycling. The whole fusion and recycling process takes only about 40 seconds to complete1.

For a long time dynamin was thought of as a ‘pinchase’, akin to a boa constrictor3, forming rings around the neck of thebudding vesicle and mediating its final constriction. But, earlier this year4, dynamin's GTPase activity was implicated in regulating downstream ‘effector’ molecules that cause vesicle fission. Schmidt et al.2 now show that one such potential dynamin effector may be a molecule called endophilin I (previously known as SH3p4). The authors show that endophilin I is a lysophosphatidic acid acyl transferase (LPAAT), and suggest that it changes the shape of the membrane lipids so as to facilitate invagination.

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Figure 1: Clathrin-mediated endocytosis.
Figure 2: The lipid-transfer reaction catalysed by endophilin I.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, 94305-5345, California, USA

    Suzie J. Scales & Richard H. Scheller

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  1. Suzie J. Scales
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  2. Richard H. Scheller
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Correspondence to Suzie J. Scales.

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Scales, S., Scheller, R. Lipid membranes shape up. Nature 401, 123–124 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/43582

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