The newly identified Hemifusome functions as a logistics hub for vesicle trafficking.
Inside the cell, vesicles work like delivery trucks transporting proteins, lipids, waste, and signals.
The hemifusome acts like a central station where these vesicles meet, sort their contents, and recycle materials .
Discovered using 🧊 cryo-electron tomography by researchers at the University of Virginia and NIH, the hemifusome is dynamic. It appears and disappears depending on the cell’s needs. It plays a key role in organizing internal transport and may be involved in diseases like Hermansky–Pudlak syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and Down syndrome .
This discovery gives us a new way to look at how cells maintain balance.. and what happens when that balance breaks.