Membrane Oscillations Keep Neurons on the Right Track 英文参考文献.docVIP

Synopses of Research Articles Inconspicuous Consumption: Uncovering the Molecular Pathways behind Phagocytosis Mason Inman | DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040190 Eating at an Ethiopian restaurant might give one an appreciation for the process of phagocytosis, a widespread method immune cells use to ingest particles. To dine using injera, the spongy Ethiopian ?atbread, you form a pocket of bread around the food that you pinch off and, with practice, stuff cleanly into your mouth. Similarly, when cells ingest small particles, viruses, or other smaller cells by phagocytosis, they extend protrusions called pseudopods around their target. The pseudopods then seal around the object, and a bit of the cell membrane that encases the object buds off and travels inside the cell. The researchers found that pseudopods extending around a particle activated ARF6 at their tips. Then as the cell more fully enveloped a particle, ARF6 turned off, and activated ARF1 appeared throughout the pseudopod until it closed around the particle. The discovery of a role for ARF1 was unexpected, since previous studies suggested this protein is not involved in phagocytosis. Also, the researchers found that inhibiting PI-3K prevented cells from switching between these two phases of phagocytosis, and caused them to stop halfway without having closed around the particles. It’s still not entirely clear what role each of the ARFs plays. ARF6 may regulate how the cell supplies more membranes to the area of phagocytosis, so that the cell can expand its surface area there and engulf particles. ARF1, on the other hand, plays a key role in protein traf?cking, and so may regulate which proteins migrate to the site of phagocytosis. But ?nding that phagocytosis has distinct phases, regulated by phospholipids in the membrane, is an important step toward sorting out how thousands of receptors can be coordinated in time and space to make a phagosome. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040190.g001 Fluorescent proteins loc