Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Assembly surprise for membrane proteins

Membrane-spanning proteins have many crucial roles in the cell. New findings challenge our current understanding of the route by which such proteins are inserted into the membranes of animal cells.
  1. Ben C. Berks

    1. Ben C. Berks is in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QU, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Proteins in cellular membranes contain one or more segments known as transmembrane domains (TMDs). Insertion of these TMDs into the membrane is a key step during the production of new membrane proteins. In eukaryotic cells (those with a nucleus), this insertion process occurs mainly at one organelle — the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Here, TMDs are integrated into the membrane as they emerge from the protein-producing ribosome. For many decades, the accepted view has been that TMD insertion occurs through the Sec61 protein complex — the same machinery that transports proteins into the interior of the ER1,2. However, writing in Nature, Smalinskaitė et al.3 and Sundaram et al.4 now challenge this understanding.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 611, 40-41 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03221-6

References

  1. Rapoport, T. A., Li, L. & Park, E. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 33, 369–390 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Hegde, R. S. & Keenan, R. J. Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 23,107–124 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Smalinskaitė, L., Kim, M. K., Lewis, A. J. O., Keenan, R. J. & Hegde, R. S. Nature 611, 161–166 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Sundaram, A. et al. Nature 611, 167–172 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. McGilvray, P. T. et al. eLife 9, e56889 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Chitwood, P. J. & Hegde, R. S. Nature 584, 630–634 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Chitwood, P. J., Juszkiewicz, S., Guna, A., Shao, S. & Hegde, R. S. Cell 175, 1507–1519 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. van den Berg, B. et al. Nature 427, 36–44 (2004).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links