Rapid endocytosis and vesicle recycling in neuroendocrine cells

Endocytosis is a crucial process for neuroendocrine cells that ensures membrane homeostasis, vesicle recycling, and hormone release reliability. Different endocytic mechanisms have been described in chromaffin cells, such as clathrin-dependent slow endocytosis and clathrin-independent rapid endocytosis. Rapid endocytosis, classically measured in terms of a fast decrease in membrane capacitance, exhibits two different forms, "rapid compensatory endocytosis" and "excess retrieval." While excess retrieval seems to be associated with formation of long-lasting endosomes, rapid compensatory endocytosis is well correlated with exocytotic activity, and it is regarded as a mechanism associated to rapid vesicle recycling during normal secretory activity. It has been suggested that rapid compensatory endocytosis may be related to the prevalence of a transient fusion mode of exo-endocytosis. In the latter mode, the fusion pore, a nanometric-sized channel formed at the onset of exocytosis, remains open for a few hundred milliseconds and later abruptly closes, releasing a small amount of transmitters. By this mechanism, endocrine cell selectively releases low molecular weight transmitters, and rapidly recycles the secretory vesicles. In this article, we discuss the cellular and molecular mechanisms that define the different forms of exocytosis and endocytosis and their impact on vesicle recycling pathways.