Clathrin adaptors really adapt

The clathrin pathway is the principal route for receptor-mediated endocytosis and growth factor downregulation. Heterotetrameric clathrin adaptors directly link the clathrin coat with cargo transmembrane proteins that are sorted into coated pits and vesicles. A paper in this issue of Call (Collins et al., 2002) describes the atomic structure of the adaptor-protein 2 (AP-2) core, the portion that makes contacts with the membrane and cytosolic tails of cargo proteins.