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Neurobiology

Sorting out the neuron

Nature volume 397, pages 653–655 (1999)Cite this article

From bacteria to algae to eggs, all cells have some degree of asymmetry — or polarization — in their structure and function. Functional polarization relies on specific macromolecules being sorted to particular sites in the cell, and the challenge is to work out how cells sort and locally retain macromolecules. Perhaps nowhere is this so difficult as in the case of proteins in the cell membrane, because their ability to diffuse in the plane of the membrane should defy the cell's attempts to position them. Some cells (such as epithelia) have obvious physical barriers to free diffusion of membrane components1. But although nature's most polarized cells, neurons, lack such barriers, certain proteins are clearly restricted to specific regions of the plasma membrane. How can this be?

On page 698 of this issue, Winckler and co-workers2 shed welcome new light on this conundrum. They have pinpointed a barrier to protein diffusion in the membrane of cultured neurons, and characterized it using direct and quantitative physical methods. Their results indicate that membrane proteins interact with a local, specialized region of the protein cytoskeleton underneath the membrane. This region impedes diffusion of the membrane proteins, allowing the neuron to maintain separate protein domains within its plasma membrane.

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Figure 1: A typical neuron and its components.
Figure 2: Movement of proteins in various regions of the neuron.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 47907, Indiana, USA

    Peter J. Hollenbeck & Gordon Ruthel

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  1. Peter J. Hollenbeck
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  2. Gordon Ruthel
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Hollenbeck, P., Ruthel, G. Sorting out the neuron. Nature 397, 653–655 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/17693

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