Cellular transport and secretion

Cells constantly shuttle proteins, lipids, and other cargo between internal compartments and the cell surface through a choreographed system of membrane-bound vesicles. The core machinery driving this traffic — including clathrin coats that curve membranes during endocytosis, Rab GTPases that direct vesicles to the right destination, SNARE proteins that catalyze membrane fusion, and ESCRT complexes that sort cargo into lysosomes for degradation — has been mapped in considerable detail, yet how these components are coordinated in space and time remains an active puzzle. Phosphoinositide lipids, which mark distinct membrane compartments with chemical identity, are emerging as a central regulatory layer, and researchers are working to understand exactly how their local synthesis and turnover govern the timing of vesicle formation and fusion events. Disruptions in this trafficking machinery underlie diseases ranging from neurodegeneration to cancer, making the molecular details of each step clinically relevant and not merely mechanistic curiosity.

Works

83,530

Total citations

2,812,585

Keywords

EndocytosisMembrane FusionRab ProteinsClathrin-Mediated EndocytosisSNARE ProteinsESCRT Machinery