Coat protein complex II (COPII) subunits assemble to form membrane transport carriers at ER exit sites, thereby concentrating secretory cargoes and facilitating their transport to the Golgi.
The coat protein complex II, or COPII, is a group of proteins that facilitate the formation of vesicles to transport proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus or endoplasmic-reticulum–Golgi intermediate compartment.
This review describes the COPII and COPI coating machineries that generate carrier vesicles and the tethers and SNAREs that mediate COPII and COPI vesicle fusion at the ER-Golgi interface.
Vesicles that bud from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to initiate intracellular transport of lipid and protein cargoes are generated by a set of cytoplasmic coat proteins known as the COPII coat.
Recent findings suggest that the COPII coat is a highly dynamic polymer and that efficient capture of cargo molecules into COPII vesicles depends on several parameters, including export signals, membrane environment, metabolic control and the presence of a repertoire of COPII subunit homologues.
COPII is an ancient and essential pathway in all eukaryotes and COPII dysfunction underlies a range of human diseases. Despite this broad significance, major aspects of COPII trafficking remain incompletely understood.
COPII vesicles are microscopic packages within cells, acting as fundamental transport carriers. These tiny, membrane-bound sacs are responsible for moving newly made proteins and lipids from one cellular compartment to another.
Coat protein complex II (COPII) is a set of highly conserved proteins that is responsible for creating small membrane vesicles that originate from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) (Lee et al., 2004; Barlowe et al., 1994).