Translational control perks up

摘要

The ability to respond to a variety of threats — from nutrient deprivation and viruses to chemical insults — is an essential property of cells. But how did primitive organisms survive these challenges, enabling them to evolve into complex animals? Stress responses are often linked to protein synthesis and folding which, in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are controlled by two different kinds of gene, GCN2 and Ire1. On page 271 of this issue, Harding et al. describe a newly discovered mammalian gene with features from both of these yeast genes.