Enigmatic brefeldin a

The fungal macrocyclic lactone brefeldin A (BFA) has been a useful tool in studying protein trafficking in the secretory and endocytic pathways in plant cells. The development of various GFP-tagged organelle markers expressed in transgenic plant cells has allowed dynamic study of organelles in response to BFA in living cells. Several organelles including the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the Golgi apparatus and endosomal compartment have been shown to have visible morphological changes in response to BFA treatment, resulting in the formation of BFA-induced aggregated compartments or ER-Golgi hybrids in various plant cells. Using transgenic tobacco BY-2 cells expressing membrane-anchored yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) reporters marking Golgi apparatus or prevacuolar compartment (PVC), we have recently demonstrated that Golgi and PVC organelles have different sensitivity to BFA, where BFA at recoverable high concentrations (50 to 100 microg/ml) also induced PVC or multivesicular body (MVB) to form aggregates in plant cells. We have thus extended the BFA action to plant PVCs/MVBs, which will serve as a useful tool for studying PVC-mediated protein sorting and PVC biogenesis.