We know that material within a cell is “packaged” within the Golgi apparatus. These “packages” (vesicles) bud off from the trans face of the Golgi and proceed to their destination. Just what drives this budding off process is closer to being understood, thanks to a recent report by Steven Jones, Kathryn Howell, John Henley, Hong Cao, and Mark McNwen. They presented morphologic and biochemical evidence that dynamin plays a role in this process.

The dynamins are a family of 100-kD guanosine triphosphatases that are thought to be involved in the budding off of vesicles from the plasma membrane during endocytosis. Whereas some forms of dynamin are restricted to specific cells, such as neurons, the form known as dynamin II (Dyn2) is present in all tissues, including epithelium.