You can snap your fingers.
You can snap a photo, use it in windows 7 or snap a lock shut.
To snap is a very useful verb.
No wonder that some scientists (G. Oyler and colleagues) decided that SNAP would be a great acronym for synaptosomal-associated protein.
SNAP was discovered in synaptosomes in 1989. Synaptosomes are obtained by gently homogenizing brain tissue and are isolated synaptic terminals which can be used to study synaptic potentials and transmitters more easily than in complete neurons.
SNAP is a regulator of vesicle docking and fusion and therefore in complex with others responsible for passing signals through synapses to other neurons in the mammalian brain.
There are several SNAPs in humans and other animals, which are numbered according to their molecular weight, e.g. SNAP-25 or SNAP-29.
References:
Oyler GA, Higgins GA, Hart RA, Battenberg E, Billingsley M, Bloom FE, Wilson MC. (1989) The identification of a novel synaptosomal-associated protein, SNAP-25, differentially expressed by neuronal subpopulations. J Cell Biol. 109(6 Pt 1):3039-52.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptosome
http://www.piercenet.com
http://www.uniprot.org