Leiden Institute of Chemistry, University Leiden, P.O. Box 9502, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Chem Soc Rev. 2011 Mar;40(3):1572-85. doi: 10.1039/c0cs00115e. Epub 2010 Dec 13.
Membrane fusion has an overarching influence on living organisms. The fusion of sperm and egg membranes initiates the life of a sexually reproducing organism. Intracellular membrane fusion facilitates molecular trafficking within every cell of the organism during its entire lifetime, and virus-cell membrane fusion may signal the end of the organism's life. Considering its importance, surprisingly little is known about the molecular-level mechanism of membrane fusion. Due to the complexity of a living cell, observations often leave room for ambiguity in interpretation. Therefore artificial model systems composed of only a few components are being used to further our understanding of controlled fusion processes. In this critical review we first give an overview of the hypothesized mechanism of membrane fusion and the techniques that are used to investigate it, and then present a selection of non-targeted and targeted model systems, finishing with current applications and predictions on future developments (85 references).
膜融合对生物体有着深远的影响。精卵细胞膜的融合启动了有性繁殖生物的生命历程。在生物体的整个生命周期内，细胞内的膜融合促进了分子在每个细胞内的运输，而病毒与细胞膜的融合则可能预示着生物体生命的终结。尽管膜融合非常重要，但人们对其分子水平的机制却知之甚少。由于活细胞的复杂性，观察结果往往在解释上存在歧义。因此，人们正在使用由少数几个成分组成的人工模型系统来进一步了解受控融合过程。在这篇评论中，我们首先概述了膜融合的假设机制和用于研究它的技术，然后介绍了一系列非靶向和靶向模型系统，最后介绍了当前的应用和对未来发展的预测（85 篇参考文献）。
