Making the cut: Intramembrane cleavage by a rhomboid protease promotes ERAD

摘要

Endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) is a cellular protein quality-control process that disposes of proteasomal substrates from the early secretory pathway. Recent work shows that the endoplasmic reticulum-resident rhomboid protease RHBDL4 facilitates ERAD by recognizing and cleaving integral membrane substrates. The work indicates that intramembrane proteolysis may have a general role in the extraction of misfolded membrane proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum.