Talk:ARF (G-Protein)

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The article makes it sound as though the vesicle coat stays intact until ARF, upon activation of its GTPase activity, hydrolyses GTP at the target membrane. I'm not sure this is true. Can someone cite sources?

I believe this is indeed the case. When I wrote this article i was primarily referencing Molecular Biology of the Cell by Albert. I'll have another look! Snellios 22:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Quoting from Lodish: "Small GTP-binding proteins (ARF or Sar1) belonging to the GTPase superfamily control polymerization of coat proteins, the initial step in vesicle budding. After vesicles are released from the donor membrane, hydrolysis of GTP bound to ARF or Sar1 triggers disassembly of the vesicle coats." There actually is a GTPase that is involved with recognizing and tethering towards the target membrane, it's called Rab. --84.172.250.196 22:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I am familiar with research in this area; it is my understanding that there are some aspects of the vesicle budding process, as well as the depolymerization upon docking, that are still in dispute. It has not been established whether GTP is hydrolyzed to GDP before/during budding, or if this happens after. Several models of this are in existence, but the last time I checked the "standard model" that you see in textbooks was still in doubt. There is also the small matter of there being more than one type of Arf-- just as Arf is a subclass of GTP binding proteins, there are different Arfs that are specific to different processes. I am going to do some more research on this class of protein, then improve on this article. Also, in research papers on this subject Arf is usually not capitalized; it seems that the standard writing is Arf. I don't know if we can change that now. DayBaye 13:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

ARF and ADP ribosylation factor are one and the same. I've redirected. DayBaye 14:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)