Rab GTPases and SNARE fusion proteins direct cargo trafficking through the exocytic and endocytic pathways of eukaryotic cells. We have used steady state mRNA expression profiling and computational hierarchical clustering methods to generate a global overview of the distribution of Rabs, SNAREs, and coat machinery components, as well as their respective adaptors, effectors, and regulators in 79 human and 61 mouse nonredundant tissues. We now show that this systems biology approach can be used to define building blocks for membrane trafficking based on Rab-centric protein activity hubs. These Rab-regulated hubs provide a framework for an integrated coding system, the membrome network, which regulates the dynamics of the specialized membrane architecture of differentiated cells. The distribution of Rab-regulated hubs illustrates a number of facets that guides the overall organization of subcellular compartments of cells and tissues through the activity of dynamic protein interaction networks. An interactive website for exploring datasets comprising components of the Rab-regulated hubs that define the membrome of different cell and organ systems in both human and mouse is available at http://www.membrome.org/.
INTRODUCTIONUnderstanding the molecular basis for the organization of the exocytic and endocytic membrane trafficking pathways in the eukaryotic cell remains a formidable challenge. The foundation of these pathways is the lipid bilayer that separates different subcellular compartments, their distinguishing features encoded by phospholipid composition, and unique sets of integral and peripheral membrane proteins. By harnessing and regulating the fundamental processes of membrane fission and fusion through the action of protein complexes, the lipid bilayer can be exploited to produce a variety of distinct subcellular compartments with unique chemical environments that play essential roles in cell and organ function. Moreover, it is now evident that these subcellular compartments are dynamic structures in continuous and specific communication through carrier vesicles and tubules that mobilize cargo to specific destinations. They can be disassembled and reassembled in a remarkably facile manner in response to cell signaling pathways, mitosis, or by simple chemical perturbants.Implicit in these dynamic pathways is the need to systematically and reversibly regulate protein interactions. Although traditional phylogenetic analyses provided significant insights into the diversity of components that direct membrane traffic (Pereira-Leal and Seabra, 2000;Chen and Scheller, 2001;Pereira-Leal and Seabra, 2001), our understanding of the basic cellular building blocks that organize this diversity into contiguous pathways is still fragmentary. Reductionist approaches using biochemical and molecular tools also provide important insights into specific steps of a pathway. However, understanding the global interconnectivities of complex biological pathways, such as cargo trafficking, will require new approaches utilizing modern ...