Fig 6.
Transient Inter-Compartmental Contact Sites (TICCS) mediate lipid traffic between membrane compartments and lipid filled adiposomes. Here depicted is the movement of a lipid cargo such as membrane sterol (yellow) between the cell surface and lipid droplets using endosomal intermediates. Migration of the sterol is bidirectional and depends on the formation endosome-endosome as well as endosome-droplet TICCS. Recognition sites (red) for each compartment contain the molecular machinery necessary for the formation of TICCS. Compartmental specificity of TICCS formation is regulated by Rab-GTP.