Linking mitochondria to ER stress by Saghatelian and colleagues
Q. Chu et al., Regulation of the ER stress response by a mitochondrial microprotein. Nat. Commun. 10 (2019), doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12816-z.
Alan Saghatelian's lab uses an elegant combination of high resolution and electron microscopy, mass-spectrometry and APEX labeling to demonstrate that PIGBOS, encoded by an antisense transcript, resides in contact sites between the ER and mitochondria. Interacting with chloride channel CLIC-like 1 (CLCC1), PIGBOS is modulates the unfolded protein response (UPR) in the ER. Loss of PIGBOS activates the UPR via an unknown mechanism, and sensitizes cells towards ER-stress induced apoptosis. I look forward to finding out how PIGBOS-CLCC1 interaction mediates this!