Function of Tethering Factors in Vesicle Transport

Intracellular delivery of materials between different organelles is mostly based on vesicle transport.Each vesicle transport reaction can be divided into four essential steps including vesicle budding,transport,tethering and fusion.These steps are tightly regulated by many factors,such as coat proteins,SM,SNARE,Rab proteins and tethering factors.Tethering factors function in the initial attachment of transport vesicles to their target membranes.Most of the tethering factors are large multisubunit complexes.Up to date,there are certain achievements on study of tethering factor.This review summarizes developments in characterization and function of tethering factors in yeast,mammalian and plant cells.