The ins and outs of yeast vacuole trafficking

Vacuoles are ubiquitous organelles in the fungal and plant kingdoms. They s erve a variety of functions and are important for cell homeostasis. A const ant turnover of proteins and membranes makes vacuoles dynamic organelles. V arious transport pathways share the vacuole as their joint destination. The trafficking pathways are regulated independently. In yeast cells many comp onents of the protein and membrane transport machinery are known. Recent ye ars have seen much progress in our understanding of the protein-sorting pat hways and the biogenesis of this organelle. Improvements of our understandi ng of the vesicular transport pathways and vacuolar membrane fusion are rev iewed.