Brefeldin A

Brefeldin A is a lactone antibiotic produced by fungal organisms such as Eupenicillium brefeldianum. Brefeldin A interferes with anterograde protein transport from the endoplasmic reticulum to the Golgi apparatus by inhibiting transport in Golgi, which leads to proteins accumulating inside the ER. In mammalian and yeast cells, the main target of brefeldin A appears to be a certain type of GTP-exchange factors responsible for activating a GTPase called Arf1p ; in turn, Arf1p is involved in the formation of transport vesicles by recruiting coat proteins to intracellular membranes. Brefeldin A was initially isolated as an anti-viral antibiotic [1] but is now primarily used in biological research to study protein transport.