The "logistics" mechanism in cells

The three Nobel laureates found that the key to the problem was the vesicle transport system.

Under the microscope, neurons look like tiny folds of paper crumpled and spread out, and they communicate with each other through the synapse, which is the basis for the functioning of the human brain. Thomas Sudhof, a neuroscientist at Stanford university in the United States, is interested in figuring out how the "communication" between neurons works.

On October 7, 2013, when the Nobel Prize website called him on his cell phone, he was driving on the road in Spain, where he was to make an academic report in the afternoon. At first he thought it was a colleague calling him, so he pulled into a parking lot to pick up the phone, but it was a call from Sweden.

Before that, the staff of the Nobel Prize website had called him to the soudhoe family, but he was not at home. The phone rang three times, and his wife, Chen lu, decided to go downstairs and answer the phone. She thought it was a Chinese relative who couldn't get the time zone.

The royal Swedish academy of sciences announced the 2013 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine goes to three "cellular material transportation research scientists - have made outstanding contributions in the United States James Rothman (James Rothman) and Randy Helen schucman (Randy Schekman), and Thomas was born in Germany soviet-german hoff (Thomas Sudhof).

Soviet-german hoff although did not work with the other two, but three of them together to solve the biology of a major problem, namely "how cells in metabolic processes, a large number of material sorting, packaging, and to the right place at the right time". The three Nobel laureates have shown that the key to the problem lies in the intracellular vesicle transport system.

Physical logistics network

With modern society developed logistics network can accurately send the goods to homes, cells also need a similar transportation system will have a molecule, cell, such as hormones, neurotransmitters and cytokines transport to other parts of the cell or transfer out of the cell.

Forty years ago, George Palade, a famous cell biologist, Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, discovered the cell's transport network under an electron microscope. He found that there was a tiny vesicle in the cell that was formed by a membrane encased in a membrane. These vesicles are able to travel between organelles with cell cargoes, or release the goods out of the cell as they fuse with cell membranes. The presence of vesicles can effectively prevent the mixing of cell goods from different types and places.

The findings were soon accepted by most scientists, but with a more complex question, "how the vesicles know when to deliver the goods".

In 1976, at the university of California, Berkeley, shukman established a laboratory and began to explore the problem in an unusual way. Using yeast as a model animal, the mechanism of intracellular material transport system is studied. At the time, some peers thought his study was a "dumb decision".

Through genetic screening, he found a plant transport system is flawed yeast cells, the cells in the vesicles in some parts of the cell, as a logistics network paralysis caused by the goods accumulation. He found that mutations in some genetic genes caused defects in the yeast cell.

With these genes as the breakthrough point, and after 10 years of research, Helen schucman identified three types of vesicle transport genes in different stage, thus provides the material transport system is the mechanism of a new insights.

As early as possible, schukman's yeast study was not only considered foolish by some, but it was also often underappreciated. His research, however, turned out to be extremely valuable. In the 1980s and 1990s, many drugs were developed because of his research on yeast. Even today, a third of the world's insulin is derived from yeast.

During the same period, rothman, who was at Stanford university, also set up his own laboratory, using mammalian cells for similar experiments. He found a affect cellular material transport proteins, and encoding the protein genes and Helen schucman mutation found in yeast, this means that the evolution of the vesicle transport system share a common origin.

In addition, rothman found a protein complex that allows the vesicles to butt and fuse with the destination's membrane system. In order to ensure that the goods are delivered to precise locations, they are only combined in a specific manner. The findings illustrate how vesicles can be transferred to the target.

The findings have long made schumann and rossmann a popular figure for the Nobel Prize. In 2002, they won the lasker award in the United States. Many of the winners of this award will then receive the Nobel Prize, so it is often referred to as a "pointer". These two biologists are no exception, and they are both internally expecting to get a call from Stockholm in October of a year.

In a press material, described at the university of California, Berkeley, every year, on the morning of the anticipated come and go, but no Swedish phone, will call Helen schucman and rothman. Shukman would use the phrase in the movie, calling it "groundhog day." In the movie groundhog day, the protagonist repeats the same story every day.

Such days have been repeated for ten years. On the evening of October 6, 2013, schueman returned home from Germany, one of Germany's highest prizes in the field of biochemistry. Within hours of lying down, he heard his wife holding the phone and Shouting, "call! There's a phone call!" This year, Sweden finally called. "Oh, my god. "My second reaction is this, too," schumann says.