Regulation of secretory granule size by the precise generation and fusion of unit granules

Morphometric evidence derived from studies of mast cells, pancreatic acinar cells and other cell types supports a model in which the post-Golgi processes that generate mature secretory granules can be resolved into three steps: (1) fusion of small, Golgi-derived progranules to produce immature secretory granules which have a highly constrained volume; (2) transformation of such immature granules into mature secretory granules, a process often associated with a reduction in the maturing granule’s volume, as well as changes in the appearance of its content and (3) fusion of secretory granules of the smallest size, termed ‘unit granules’, forming granules whose volumes are multiples of the unit granule’s volume. Mutations which perturb this process can cause significant pathology. For example, Chediak–Higashi syndrome / lysosomal trafficking regulator (CHS)/(Lyst) mutations result in giant secretory granules in a number of cell types in human beings with the Chediak–Higashi syndrome and in ‘beige’ (Lyst(bg)/Lyst(bg)) mice. Analysis of the secretory granules of mast cells and pancreatic acinar cells in Lyst-deficient beige mice suggests that beige mouse secretory granules retain the ability to fuse randomly with other secretory granules no matter what the size of the fusion partners. By contrast, in normal mice, the pattern of granule–granule fusion occurs exclusively by the addition of unit granules, either to each other or to larger granules. The normal pattern of fusion is termed unit addition and the fusion evident in cells with CHS/Lyst mutations is called random addition. The proposed model of secretory granule formation has several implications. For example, in neurosecretory cells, the secretion of small amounts of cargo in granules constrained to a very narrow size increases the precision of the information conveyed by secretion. By contrast, in pancreatic acinar cells and mast cells, large granules composed of multiple unit granules permit the cells to store large amounts of material without requiring the amount of membrane necessary to package the same amount of cargo into small granules. In addition, the formation of mature secretory granules that are multimers of unit granules provides a mechanism for mixing in large granules the contents of unit granules which differ in their content of cargo.