Building Bridges - Organelle Tethering Complexes in Subcellular Communication

Membrane-bound organelles generate subcellular compartments in order to facilitate individual metabolic pathways which require distinct biochemical environments. In this classical view, organelles have been associated to specific functions such as ATP-generation, lipid- or amino acid metabolism. Quite frequently metabolic pathways are only partially completed in one organelle and intermediate compounds have to be transferred from one organelle to the other. Examples for such pathways are etherlipid synthesis, which is performed in peroxisomes and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), or cholesterol biosynthesis, which distributes among ER, mitochondria and partially peroxisomes.