Endophilin and synaptojanin hook up to promote synaptic vesicle endocytosis

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis of synaptic vesicles requires molecular rearrangements of proteins as well as lipids. In this issue of Neuron, Schuske et al. and Verstreken et al. show that the lipid-modifying enzyme endophilin recruits and stabilizes the polyphosphoinositide phosphatase synaptojanin at nerve terminals. This remarkable pairing of two enzymatic activities promotes multiple steps of clathrin-mediated endocytosis of synaptic vesicles.