Related Experiment Videos
Mechanisms of vesicle docking and fusion: insights from the nervous system
1Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Beckman Center, Stanford University Medical Center, CA 94305.
Current Opinion in Cell Biology
|August 1, 1994
Abstract:
Upon stimulation of nerve cells, synaptic vesicles fuse with the presynaptic plasma membrane to release neurotransmitter. The biochemical pathway responsible for synaptic-vesicle docking and fusion is now being elucidated. Many of the proteins implicated in this process have homologs elsewhere in the cell. The docking and fusion mechanism discussed in this review may account for the specificity of vesicular trafficking throughout both regulated and constitutive secretory pathways.