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Tension in Tubulovesicular Networks of Golgi and Endoplasmic Reticulum Membranes

Arpita Upadhyaya ^* and Michael P. Sheetz  ^*

^* Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, New York

Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Michael P. Sheetz, Dept. of Biological Sciences, PO Box 2408, Columbia University, Sherman Fairchild Center, Rm. 713, 1212 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027. Tel.: 212-854-4857, Lab 4-8133; Fax: 212-854-6399; E-mail: ms2001{at}columbia.edu.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi have robust bidirectional traffic between them and yet form distinct membrane compartments. Membrane tubules are pulled from large aggregates of ER or Golgi by microtubule motors to form ER tubulovesicular networks or Golgi tubules both in vivo and in vitro. The physical properties of membranes are critical for membrane traffic and organelle morphology. For example, tension applied to membranes can create tethers, drive membrane flow, and set the diameter of the tubules. Here, we formed ER and Golgi membrane networks in vitro and used optical tweezers to measure directly, for the first time, the membrane tensions of these organelles to clarify the possible role of tension in membrane flow. We report that higher forces are needed to form tethers from ER (18.6 ± 2.8 pN) than from Golgi (11.4 ± 1.4 pN) membrane tubules in vitro. Since ER tubules are smaller in diameter than Golgi tubules, it follows that Golgi networks have a lower tension than ER. The lower tension of the ER could be an explanation of how Golgi tubules can be rapidly drawn into the ER by tension-driven flow after fusion, as is observed in vivo.

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