ER to Golgi-Dependent Protein Secretion: The Conventional Pathway

Abstract

Secretion is the cellular process present in every organism that delivers soluble proteins and cargoes to the extracellular space. In eukaryotes, conventional protein secretion (CPS) is the trafficking route that secretory proteins undertake when are transported from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the Golgi apparatus (GA), and subsequently to the plasma membrane (PM) via secretory vesicles or secretory granules. This book chapter recalls the fundamental steps in cell biology research contributing to the elucidation of CPS; it describes the most prominent examples of conventionally secreted proteins in eukaryotic cells and the molecular mechanisms necessary to regulate each step of this process.

Keywords: COPI; COPII; ER; Golgi; Plasma membrane; Regulated secretion; Ribosome; SNARE; SRP; Secretory granules; Secretory vesicles; TGN; Translocon.