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Guarding the gate for mitochondrial entry

The protein-import systems of organelles can become clogged by proteins. A protein from one organelle, the endoplasmic reticulum, is found to also unclog such blockages in mitochondrial organelles.
  1. Sylvie Callegari

    1. Sylvie Callegari is in the Department of Cellular Biochemistry, University Medical Center Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.

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  2. Peter Rehling

    1. Peter Rehling is in the Department of Cellular Biochemistry, University Medical Center Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany, and at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen.

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Organelles known as mitochondria are the energy-generating powerhouses of the cell. As a crucial part of the cellular machinery, disruption to their function could have serious consequences, and so mechanisms exist to combat mitochondrial dysfunction. Writing in Nature, Mårtensson et al.1 report a pathway that tackles problems concerning the import of proteins into mitochondria, as they arise, to prevent mitochondrial and cellular dysfunction. This pathway uses part of the cellular repair kit that handles damaged proteins in another organelle — the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).

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Nature 569, 635-637 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01588-7

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