On vesicles and membrane compartments

Two different mechanisms have been proposed to explain transport along the endocytic and biosynthetic transport routes in cells. The first involves stable compartments connected by vesicular traffic while the second argues that the key organelles (early endosomes or the cis Golgi) form de novo by fusion of vesicles and subsequently mature into later forms. In the first part of this article, I propose a classification that distinguishes between stable, pre existing membrane compartments and Vesicles that are, by definition, transient organelles. In this scheme, compartments, but not vesicles, are capable of homotypic fusion while vesicles, but not compartments, are able to ''mature'', a process defined as an irreversible set of biochemical events which lead to a physiologically distinct end-stale of the vesicle prior to its vectorial fusion with a target compartment. In the second part, I summarize my current ideas about the ultrastructural organization of the ER-Golgi region. Finally, I review the cell biology of selected examples of different Vesicle types in order to exemplify the fascinating diversity of functions that this class of membrane organelles has evolved.