Transport vesicle formation in plant cells

Abstract

In protein trafficking, transport vesicles bud from donor compartments and carry cargo proteins to target compartments with which they fuse. Thus, vesicle formation is an essential step in protein trafficking. As for mammals, plant cells contain the three major types of vesicles: COPI, COPII, and CCV and the major molecular players in vesicle-mediated protein transport are also present. However, plant cells generally contain more isoforms of the coat proteins, ARF GTPases and their regulatory proteins, as well as SNAREs. In addition, plants have established some unique subfamilies, which may reflect plant cell-specific conditions such as the absence of an ER-Golgi intermediate compartment and the combined activities of the TGN and early endosome. Thus, even though we are still at an early stage in understanding the physiological function of these proteins, it is already clear that vesicle-mediated protein transport in plant cells displays both similarities as well as differences in animal cells.