Clathrin-coated vesicles mediate membrane-protein sorting during endocytosis and organelle biogenesis. Although it is known that clathrin triskelions self-assemble into many polyhedral lattice designs, including a soccer-ball-like shape, it’s been difficult to imagine what this process looks like on a molecular level.

Tom Kirchhausen (Harvard Medical School) has added an extra dimension to our understanding of this process by modelling clathrin-coat formation in time and space. With the help of Allison Bruce (Genentech) he has produced a striking movie in which we, the viewers, observe the formation of a clathrin coat from the perspective of the plasma membrane. Taking advantage of recent X-ray crystallographic and electron cryomicroscopy data, he has modelled individual clathrin triskelions as rigid bodies, entering (or exiting) the coat by simple rotations and translations. The result is an elegant and artistic depiction of coated-vesicle formation. The image at the left represents a vesicle midway through the assembly process. There is free access to the movie at http://www.hms.harvard.edu/news/clathrin.