Electron microscopic morphometry of isolated rat brain porosome complex

Porosomes are the universal secretory portals at the cell plasma membrane where secretory vesicles dock and transiently fuse via the kiss-and-run mechanism of cellular secretion, to release intravesicular cargo to the outside of the cell. During last two decades discovery of porosome and a great volume of work from different laboratories provide molecular insights on the structure, function, and composition of the porosome complex, especially the neuronal porosome. In rat neurons 12-17 nm cup-shaped lipoprotein porosomes present at presynaptic membrane. They possess a central plug and sometimes are with docked synaptic vesicles. Although earlier studies have greatly progressed our understanding of the morphology and the proteome and limited lipidome of the neuronal porosome complex, the current study was carried out to determine the morphology of the bare protein backbone of the neuronal porosome complex. Results from our study demonstrate that although the eight-fold symmetry of the immunoisolated porosome is maintained, and the central plug is preserved in the isolated structures, there is a loss in the average size of the porosome complex, possibly due to a loss of lipids from the complex.