Sweet bays of ERAD

Proteins that improperly mature in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) are dislocated to the cytoplasm for proteasome-mediated destruction. A recent study provides insight into the incompletely understood processes for selection and targeting of aberrant proteins for ER-associated protein degradation. The identification of the ER chaperones GRP94 and BiP as binding partners for the mannose-binding proteins OS-9 and XTP3-B, indicates that these protein complexes bind to aberrant proteins and direct them to the Hrd1 dislocation and ubiquitylation complex in the ER membrane.