News and Views abstract
Nature Cell Biology 2, E105 - E106 (2000)
doi:10.1038/35014100
Giving protein traffic the green light
Linda M. Hendershot1
- Linda M. Hendershot is in the Department of Tumor Cell Biology, St Jude Children's Research Hospital, 332 North Lauderdale Street, Memphis, Tennessee 38105, USA. e-mail: linda.hendershot@stjude.org
Abstract
Most proteins that are secreted or expressed on a cell surface are synthesized on membrane polysomes and enter the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) as unfolded polypeptide chains. A complex series of interactions with resident enzymes and molecular chaperones ensure that these proteins are folded and assembled to achieve their correct tertiary structures before being transported to the Golgi and along the secretory pathway. However, the mechanism by which properly folded molecules are sorted from incompletely or improperly folded proteins and from the resident proteins that guide this process remains unclear.
