Identification of coated vesicles in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Clathrin-coated vesicles were found in yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and enriched from spheroplasts by a rapid procedure utilizing gel filtration on Sephacryl S-1000. The coated vesicles (62-nm diam) were visualized by negative stain electron microscopy and clathrin triskelions were observed by rotary shadowing. The contour length of a triskelion leg was 490 nm. Coated vesicle fractions contain a prominent band with molecular weight of ~185,000 when analyzed by SDS PAGE. The presence of coated vesicles in yeast cells suggests that this organism will be useful for studying the function of clathrin-coated vesicles.