Endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation

The quality control system in the endoplasmic reticulum of eukaryotic cells ensures that newly synthesized proteins that fail to fold into the correct conformation or unassembled orphan subunits of oligomeric proteins are rap idly eliminated by proteolytic degradation. This entails the export of prot eins from the endoplasmic reticulum to the cytosol followed by their destru ction by the cytosolic ubiquitin/proteasome pathway. While this mechanism e ffectively prevents the cellular accumulation of non-functional or unwanted endogenous proteins, it renders the cell vulnerable to certain viruses and toxins that are able to subvert this degradative mechanism for their own a dvantage.