Clathrin Totally Explained

Everything about Clathrin totally explained

Clathrin is a protein that's the major constituent of the 'coat' of the clathrin-coated pits and coated vesicles formed during endocytosis of materials at the surface of cells.
Clathrin molecules are recruited with the aid of adaptor proteins to a membrane segment that's destined to be incorporated into a vesicle. In synaptic vesicle formation, one such adaptor protein is AP180 (see here for micrographs of clathrin assembly

). This protein both recruits clathrin to membranes and also promotes its polymerisation in a localized polyhedral lattice on the plasma membrane. Epsin can also recruit clathrin to membranes and promote its polymerisation, and, in this case, the epsin helps deform the membrane and thus clathrin coated vesicles can bud (see here for micrographs of vesicle budding

). After vesicle scission, the coat quickly falls off and may then be reused to form fresh-coated pits and vesicles. The un-coated vesicle then fuses with endosomes, delivering its contents to them; this membrane is ultimately returned to the cell surface.
   Summary:
1) In response to a stimulus (eg. receptor tyrosine kinase meets a ligand), adaptin binds to the C-terminus of many molecules on the cell surface 2) The clathrin heavy and light chains will bind to and polymerize around the vesicle, which will pinch off 3) Unlike COPI and COPII, a piece of the membrane is pinched off, mediated by dynamin 4) Once clathrin coated vesicles have separated, clathrin coats disassemble to leave the naked transport vesicle 5)Vesicles are transported by mechanisms associated with microtubules within the cell, and then fuse with other membrane structures (eg. endosomes).
   A similar process also buds membrane segments from intracellular organelles, such as in the formation of vesicles from the trans-Golgi network.
   Clathrin was first isolated and named by Barbara Pearse in 1975.

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