RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A paralog-specific role of COPI vesicles in the neuronal differentiation of mouse pluripotent cells JF Life Science Alliance JO Life Sci. Alliance FD Life Science Alliance LLC SP e202000714 DO 10.26508/lsa.202000714 VO 3 IS 9 A1 Manu Jain Goyal A1 Xiyan Zhao A1 Mariya Bozhinova A1 Karla Andrade-López A1 Cecilia de Heus A1 Sandra Schulze-Dramac A1 Michaela Müller-McNicoll A1 Judith Klumperman A1 Julien Béthune YR 2020 UL https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/3/9/e202000714.abstract AB Coat protein complex I (COPI)–coated vesicles mediate membrane trafficking between Golgi cisternae as well as retrieval of proteins from the Golgi to the endoplasmic reticulum. There are several flavors of the COPI coat defined by paralogous subunits of the protein complex coatomer. However, whether paralogous COPI proteins have specific functions is currently unknown. Here, we show that the paralogous coatomer subunits γ1-COP and γ2-COP are differentially expressed during the neuronal differentiation of mouse pluripotent cells. Moreover, through a combination of genome editing experiments, we demonstrate that whereas γ-COP paralogs are largely functionally redundant, γ1-COP specifically promotes neurite outgrowth. Our work stresses a role of the COPI pathway in neuronal polarization and provides evidence for distinct functions for coatomer paralogous subunits in this process.