Membrane fission is essential to life. It is required for many fundamental cellular processes, as diverse as cyto- and karyokinesis, organelle division, membrane repair, and membrane trafficking and endocytosis. While membrane fission was originally seen as resulting from the action of mechanoenzymes such as dynamin, it is clear that the reality is more complex. In this review, we propose an updated overview of fission mechanisms, and try to extract essential requirements for each. We also present examples of cellular processes that involve these fission mechanisms. Finally, we list pending questions, whether they are specific to a peculiar fission mechanism or more general to the field.

膜裂变是生命必不可少的。它是许多基本细胞过程所必需的，这些过程包括细胞运动和核运动，细胞器分裂，膜修复以及膜运输和胞吞作用。虽然最初认为膜裂变是由于机械酶如动力蛋白的作用引起的，但很明显，现实更为复杂。在这篇综述中，我们提出了裂变机制的更新概述，并尝试为每种裂变机制提取基本要求。我们还提出了涉及这些裂变机制的细胞过程的例子。最后，我们列出了悬而未决的问题，这些问题是特定于特定的裂变机制还是更普遍的领域。