The Journal of Cell Biology, Vol 91, 790-797, Copyright © 1981 by The Rockefeller University Press

ARTICLES

Assembly and packing of clathrin into coats

RA Crowther and BM Pearse

We present a model for the packing of clathrin molecules into the characteristic hexagons and pentagons covering coated pits and vesicles. The assembly unit is a symmetrical trimer with three extended legs. Polymerization of these units occurs in seconds under suitable conditions, giving empty polyhedral cages resembling the structures around coated vesicles. Images of small, negatively stained fragments of cages, assembled directly on electron microscope grids, reveal details of the structure, which correlate well with the predicted features of the model. There is one clathrin trimer at each polyhedral vertex, and each leg of the trimer extends along two neighboring polyhedral edges. Quasi-equivalent packing in pentagons and hexagons in polyhedra of different sizes requires a variable joint at the vertex of the molecule and a hinge in each leg. The construction of clathrin coats is remarkable for the extended fibrous contacts that each molecule makes with many others. Such contacts may confer mechanical strength combined with flexibility needed when a vesicle is pinched off from the membrane.
CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Hinrichsen, L., Meyerholz, A., Groos, S., Ungewickell, E. J. (2006). Bending a membrane: How clathrin affects budding. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103: 8715-8720 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Yim, Y.-I., Scarselletta, S., Zang, F., Wu, X., Lee, D.-w., Kang, Y.-s., Eisenberg, E., Greene, L. E. (2005). Exchange of clathrin, AP2 and epsin on clathrin-coated pits in permeabilized tissue culture cells. J. Cell Sci. 118: 2405-2413 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Heymann, J. B., Iwasaki, K., Yim, Y.-I., Cheng, N., Belnap, D. M., Greene, L. E., Eisenberg, E., Steven, A. C. (2005). Visualization of the Binding of Hsc70 ATPase to Clathrin Baskets: IMPLICATIONS FOR AN UNCOATING MECHANISM. J. Biol. Chem. 280: 7156-7161 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Morgan, G. W., Allen, C. L., Jeffries, T. R., Hollinshead, M., Field, M. C. (2002). Developmental and morphological regulation of clathrin-mediated endocytosis in Trypanosoma brucei. J. Cell Sci. 114: 2605-2615 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Hannan, L. A., Newmyer, S. L., Schmid, S. L. (1998). ATP- and Cytosol-dependent Release of Adaptor Proteins from Clathrin-coated Vesicles: A Dual Role for Hsc70. Mol. Biol. Cell 9: 2217-2229 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Cupers, P., ter Haar, E., Boll, W., Kirchhausen, T. (1997). Parallel Dimers and Anti-parallel Tetramers Formed by Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Pathway Substrate Clone 15 (EPS15). J. Biol. Chem. 272: 33430-33434 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Warnock, D. E., Baba, T., Schmid, S. L. (1997). Ubiquitously Expressed Dynamin-II Has a Higher Intrinsic GTPase Activity and a Greater Propensity for Self-assembly Than Neuronal Dynamin-I. Mol. Biol. Cell 8: 2553-2562 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Goodman Jr., O. B., Krupnick, J. G., Gurevich, V. V., Benovic, J. L., Keen, J. H. (1997). Arrestin/Clathrin Interaction. LOCALIZATION OF THE ARRESTIN BINDING LOCUS TO THE CLATHRIN TERMINAL DOMAIN. J. Biol. Chem. 272: 15017-15022 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Wang, L.-H., Südhof, T. C., Anderson, R. G. W. (1995). The Appendage Domain of [IMAGE]-Adaptin Is a High Affinity Binding Site for Dynamin. J. Biol. Chem. 270: 10079-10083 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
• Moore, M., Mahaffey, D., Brodsky, F., Anderson, R. (1987). Assembly of clathrin-coated pits onto purified plasma membranes. Science 236: 558-563 [Abstract]  

Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents