Nobelprize.org, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize

Congratulation to Rothman, Schekman and Südhof for their Nobel Prize recognising an amazing set of discoveries about machinery regulating vesicle traffic.

What is now remarkable about the mechanism is the role of Cholesterol in facilitating the wrapping and release machinery. In 2008 Xia et al. established that it only took a 10% fall in membrane cholesterol to bring the whole process of vesicle release to a stop. (doi: 10.1210/en.2008-0161)

Cholesterol was so ubiquitous, and very erroneously thought to be a causative agent in disease, its vital roles in vesicle formation and release were overlooked. Now that the vesicles are a hot topic I hope to see cholesterol recognised for its role in all this vesicle traffic.

Wainwright G, Mascitelli L, Goldstein MR. Cholesterol lowering therapies and membrane cholesterol. Stable plaque at the expense of unstable membranes? Arch Med Sci. 2009;5:289–95.

Nobel Prizes, Vesicle Traffic and Cholesterol