BARS takes Golgi apart

Cristina Hidalgo Carcedo, Alberto Luini, Daniela Corda, and colleagues (Consorzio Mario Negri Sud, Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy) suggest that Golgi membranes are chopped up by a protein called BARS before mitosis can occur. Their cell culture studies contrast, however, with results from genetic knock-out experiments.

BARS is closely related to the CtBP family of transcriptional repressors needed for normal embryonic development in mouse and fly. Corda and Luini previously found that, in rat cells, BARS is what brefeldin A might target with its ADP ribosylation activity when it inhibits Golgi trafficking. Their subsequent work suggested that BARS is needed for the fission of vesicles during trafficking.

The new report indicates that BARS also cuts up the Golgi into vesicles and small tubules to be shared by daughter cells. The authors removed BARS...