Abstract. Certain properties of the highly specialized synaptic transmitter vesicles are shared by constitutively occurring vesicles. We and others have thus identified a cDNA in various nonneuroendocrine cell types of rat and human that is related to synaptophysin, one of the major synaptic vesicle membrane proteins, which we termed pantophysin. Here we characterize the gene structure, mRNA and protein expression, and intracellular distribution of pantophysin. Its mRNA is detected in murine cell types of nonneuroendocrine as well as of neuroendocrine origin. The intron/exon structure of the murine pantophysin gene is identical to that of synaptophysin except for the last intron that is absent in pantophysin. The encoded polypeptide of calculated mol wt 28,926 shares many sequence features with synaptophysin, most notably the four hydrophobic putative transmembrane domains, although the cytoplasmic end domains are completely different. Using antibodies against the unique carboxy terminus pantophysin can be detected by immunofluorescence microscopy in both exocrine and endocrine cells of human pancreas, and in cultured cells, colocalizing with constitutive secretory and endocytotic vesicle markers in nonneuroendocrine cells and with synaptophysin in cDNAtransfected epithelial cells. By immunoelectron microscopy, the majority of pantophysin reactivity is detected at vesicles with a diameter of <100 nm that have a smooth surface and an electron-translucent interior. Using cell fractionation in combination with immunoisolation, these vesicles are enriched in a light fraction and shown to contain the cellular vSNARE cellubrevin and the ubiquitous SCAMPs in epithelial cells and synaptophysin in neuroendocrine or cDNA-transfected nonneuroendocrine cells and neuroendocrine tissues. Pantophysin is therefore a broadly distributed marker of small cytoplasmic transport vesicles independent of their content.
TRANSPORT between discontinuous cellular membranes is dependent on the presence of small carrier vesicles. Such vesicles have been identified and characterized in various pathways connecting, e.g., ERand Golgi apparatus, cis-and trans-Golgi cisternae, Golgi apparatus and lysosomes, trans-Golgi network and plasma membrane, or plasma membrane and endosomes (for description of such transport vesicles see references 4, 14, 28, 48, 51-53; for review see references 19, 56, 57). While it has been shown in many instances that the assembly of a defined "coat" is of importance for selective vesicle formation from a donor membrane (for example see references 2, 51, 55, 61, 65, 74), and that a multimolecular fusion complex is involved in vesicle fusion with a particular target membrane (for recent review see references 6, 20, 61, 66), very little is known about basic requirements for vesicle maintenance in the "free" cytoplasmic state. A suitable model system to examine principles determining vesicle morphogenesis is the synaptic, transmittercontaining, small secretory vesicle in neurons. Its major components have been characterized...