THE ROLE OF MICROTUBULE-BASED MOTORS IN THE EXOCYTIC TRANSPORT OF POLARIZED CELLS

The different membrane surfaces of polarized cells have different lipi d and protein components. The biogenesis and maintenance of these surf aces require that the lipids and proteins are sorted and packaged into specific vesicular populations which will transport their 'cargo' to the different membranes. Taking advantage of well-described polarized cell systems, such as epithelial cells and neurons, functional studies have been carried out to examine the role of their motors in polarize d membrane trafficking. These studies demonstrate that vesicles transp orting newly synthesized proteins from the Golgi complex to the cell s urface use microtubule motors to reach their destinations.