You better keep an eye on your contacts

Abstract

Membrane contact sites (MCS) are specialized compartments found in all eukaryotic cells that are formed between membranes of different organelles that are in close proximity. MCS have important functions as they are sites of efficient transfer of molecules between neighboring organelles. Two recent articles have used the splitFAST system to mark and follow the dynamics of membrane contact sites and used the method to highlight the importance of MCS between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and lipid droplets in metabolic adaptation and MCS between the ER and mitochondria in Ca²⁺ signal propagation.