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Protein complexes assemble as they are being made

An investigation finds that most protein complexes in yeast cells assemble before the subunits have fully formed. This mechanism might prevent the formation of toxic protein aggregates.
  1. Christine Mayr

    1. Christine Mayr is in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10065, USA.

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Most cellular processes are carried out by proteins, which generally assemble into heteromeric complexes — those composed of two or more distinct subunits. Although it was thought for many years that protein subunits diffuse freely in the cell and form complexes through random collisions, this seems unlikely, given that the cellular environment is extremely crowded. Writing in Nature, Shiber et al.1 provide in vivo evidence that, in eukaryotic organisms (which include animals, plants and fungi), most protein complexes in the cytoplasm are assembled co-translationally — that is, assembly occurs while at least one of the subunits is still being synthesized by the cell’s ribosome machinery.

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Nature 561, 186-187 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05905-4

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