Abstract
The general preprotein translocase of the outer mitochondrial membrane (TOM complex) transports virtually all mitochondrial precursor proteins, but cannot assemble outer-membrane precursors into functional complexes. A recently discovered sorting and assembly machinery (SAM complex) is essential for integration and assembly of outer-membrane proteins, revealing unexpected connections to mitochondrial evolution and morphology.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to G. Schatz, F. Paltauf, S.D. Kohlwein, J. Soll, R.E. Jensen, K.Mihara, I. Gentle and M.T. Ryan for discussion and support in clarifying the nomenclature of the SAM subunits according to the rules of the Saccharomyces genome database (SGD). Work of the authors' laboratories was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 388, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme, Max Planck Research Award, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie and the Australian Research Council.
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Pfanner, N., Wiedemann, N., Meisinger, C. et al. Assembling the mitochondrial outer membrane. Nat Struct Mol Biol 11, 1044–1048 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb852
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb852
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