COPII-coated tubules emanating from artificial giant lipid vesicles

We study the formation of coated vesicles, which transport cargo molecules between intracellular compartments. We have artificially reconstituted the reaction, in which the COPII protein coat deforms a membrane, using Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) as lipid bilayers. The image shows a visualization of this process by confocal microscopy.

Image courtesy of Kirsten Bacia, Randy Schekman and Berkeley Molecular Imaging Center (MIC)