抄録
Protein-mediated membrane fusion plays a crucial role in the eukaryotic world. Especially, steps such as endocytosis and exocytosis require strongly regulated and coordinated fusion events. The fusion protein, however, is still not identified in spite of increased sophistication of cell-free assay systems for measuring the intracellular fusions because "multi-subunit" protein complex seems to be involved in the fusions. In this review we describe some of our physicochemical approaches for searching and understanding the "fusion machinery" in living cells.
