Two modes of exocytosis in an artificial cell
Journal article, 2014

The details of exocytosis, the vital cell process of neuronal communication, are still under debate with two generally accepted scenarios. The first mode of release involves secretory vesicles distending into the cell membrane to release the complete vesicle contents. The second involves partial release of the vesicle content through an intermittent fusion pore, or an opened or partially distended fusion pore. Here we show that both full and partial release can be mimicked with a single large-scale cell model for exocytosis composed of material from blebbing cell plasma membrane. The apparent switching mechanism for determining the mode of release is demonstrated to be related to membrane tension that can be differentially induced during artificial exocytosis. These results suggest that the partial distension mode might correspond to an extended kiss-and-run mechanism of release from secretory cells, which has been proposed as a major pathway of exocytosis in neurons and neuroendocrine cells.

QUANTAL SIZE

LIPID NANOTUBES

ELECTROCHEMICAL CYTOMETRY

SPIKE FEET

CHROMAFFIN CELLS

RELEASE

KISS-AND-RUN

PHEOCHROMOCYTOMA PC12 CELLS

SECRETORY VESICLES

FUSION PORE

Author

Lisa Mellander

University of Gothenburg

Michael Kurczy

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Analytical Chemistry

Neda Najafinobar

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Analytical Chemistry

Johan Dunevall

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Analytical Chemistry

Andrew Ewing

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Analytical Chemistry

University of Gothenburg

Ann-Sofie Cans

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Analytical Chemistry

Scientific Reports

2045-2322 (ISSN) 20452322 (eISSN)

Vol. 4 (article nr.) 3847- 3847

Subject Categories

Chemical Sciences

DOI

10.1038/srep03847

More information

Latest update

2/6/2018 9