Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Foreword
- List of contributors
- 1 Coated vesicles: a morphologically distinct subclass of endocytic vesicles
- 2 Coated vesicles in different cell types: some functional implications
- 3 Coated vesicles: their occurrence in different plant cell types
- 4 Immunoglobulin transmission in mammalian young and the involvement of coated vesicles
- 5 Coated vesicles in neurons
- 6 Coated vesicles in the oocyte
- 7 Adsorptive and passive pinocytic uptake
- 8 Coated vesicles and receptor biology
- 9 Coated secretory vesicles
- 10 Dynamic aspects of coated vesicle function
- 11 Structural aspects of coated vesicles at the molecular level
- 12 Coated vesicles in medical science
- Appendix 1 Nomenclature
- Appendix 2 References added at proof
- Author index
- Subject index
- Plate section
5 - Coated vesicles in neurons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Foreword
- List of contributors
- 1 Coated vesicles: a morphologically distinct subclass of endocytic vesicles
- 2 Coated vesicles in different cell types: some functional implications
- 3 Coated vesicles: their occurrence in different plant cell types
- 4 Immunoglobulin transmission in mammalian young and the involvement of coated vesicles
- 5 Coated vesicles in neurons
- 6 Coated vesicles in the oocyte
- 7 Adsorptive and passive pinocytic uptake
- 8 Coated vesicles and receptor biology
- 9 Coated secretory vesicles
- 10 Dynamic aspects of coated vesicle function
- 11 Structural aspects of coated vesicles at the molecular level
- 12 Coated vesicles in medical science
- Appendix 1 Nomenclature
- Appendix 2 References added at proof
- Author index
- Subject index
- Plate section
Summary
The existence of coated vesicles (CVs) in neurons has been known since 1961 when Gray reported ‘complex vesicles’ in mossy fibre endings of the rat cerebellar cortex. He described them as spheres, 60–80 nm in diameter, surrounded by shells consisting of closely packed 15–20 nm vesicular bodies. This unusual structural organisation was probably only an apparent one. Today the structure assigned to CVs in neurons and other cells, which is based upon detailed analyses of isolated CVs, consists of a spherical lipid-bilayer vesicle enclosed by a protein coat composed of pentagonal and hexagonal subunits (Kanaseki & Kadota, 1969; Kadota & Kadota, 1973a, b; Pearse, 1975; Crowther, Finch & Pearse, 1976; Woods, Woodward & Roth, 1978). The comparison of CVs isolated from different tissues (Pearse, 1975, 1976; Woods et al., 1978) and in thin sections of isolated tissues (Nickel, Vogel & Waser, 1967) revealed no significant differences between the structure and chemical properties of CVs in neurons and in other cells.
For a time there was some doubt whether neuronal CVs were discrete organelles. Difficulty in resolving the three-dimensional organisation of the coat by goniometry led to the idea that the CVs seen in thin sections were fixation artifacts arising from the denaturation of microtubules or of the neuronal cytonet (Gray, 1972, 1975; Westrum & Gray, 1977). This idea, however, was not supported by the studies of CVs isolated from unfixed brain tissue cited above.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Coated Vesicles , pp. 103 - 134Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1980
- 1
- Cited by