The active zone is present in all chemical synapses examined so far and is present in all animal species.  The active zones examined so far have at least two features in common, they all have protein dense material that project from the membrane and tethers synaptic vesicles close to the membrane and they have long filamentous projections originating at the membrane and terminating at vesicles slightly farther from the presynaptic membrane.  The protein dense projections vary in size and shape depending on the type of synapse examined.  One striking example of the dense projection is the ribbon synapse (see below) which contains a "ribbon" of protein dense material that is surrounded by a halo of synaptic vesicles and extends perpendicular to the presynaptic membrane and can be as long as 500 nm.  The glutamate synapse contains smaller pyramid like structures that extend about 50 nm from the membrane.  The neuromuscular synapse contains two rows of vesicles with a long proteinaceous band between them that is connected to regularly spaced horizontal ribs extending perpendicular to the band and parallel with the membrane.  These ribs are then connected to the vesicles which are each positioned above a peg in the membrane (presumably a calcium channel). Previous research indicated that the active zone of glutamatergic neurons contained a highly regular array of pyramid shaped protein dense material and  indicated that these pyramids were connected by filaments.  This structure resembled a geometric lattice where vesicles were guided into holes of the lattice.  This attractive model has come into question by recent experiments.  Recent data shows that the glutamatergic active zone does contain the dense protein material projections but these projections were not in a regular array and contained long filaments projecting about 80 nm into the cytoplasm.
There are at least five major scaffold proteins that are enriched in the active zone; UNC13B/Munc13, RIMS1 (Rab3-interacting molecule), Bassoon, Piccolo/aczonin, ELKS, and liprins-α.  These scaffold proteins are thought to be the constituents of the dense pyramid like structures of the active zone and are thought to bring the synaptic vesicles into close proximity to the presynaptic membrane and the calcium channels.  The protein ELKS binds to the cell adhesion protein, β-neurexin, and other proteins within the complex such as Piccolo and Bassoon. β-neurexin then binds to cell adhesion molecule, neuroligin located on the postsynaptic membrane.  Neuroligin then interacts with proteins that bind to postsynaptic receptors.  Protein interactions like that seen between Piccolo/ELKS/β-neurexin/neuroligin ensures that machinery that mediates vesicle fusion is in close proximity to calcium channels and that vesicle fusion is adjacent to postsynaptic receptors.  This close proximity vesicle fusion and postsynaptic receptors ensures that there is little delay between the activation of the postsynaptic receptors and the release of neurotransmitters.