A Genomic Analysis of Membrane Trafficking and Neurotransmitter Release in Drosophila

Intracellular compartments are maintained via an organized system of transport pathways that traffic lipids and proteins in vesicular organelles in a specific and regulated manner (Bennett and Scheller 1993; Ferro-Novick and Jahn 1994). The recent completion of the Drosophila genome (Adams et al. 2000; Rubin et al. 2000) allows us to analyze the ∼14,000 genes that are encoded and begin to make evolutionary comparisons of mechanisms underlying membrane trafficking in metazoans. Models for intracellular trafficking have built upon the original SNARE hypothesis proposed by Söllner et al. 1993. In current models, the assembly and disassembly of a ternary complex composed of SNARE proteins is predicted to play a key role in vesicle–target membrane fusion. The neuronal SNARE complex, which is required for synaptic vesicle exocytosis at nerve terminals (Schulze et al....