Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 2 October 2009:
Vol. 326. no. 5949, pp. 57 - 58
DOI: 10.1126/science.1180482
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

Cell Biology:

A Revolving Door for Calcium

Nicolas Demaurex1 and Damon Poburko1,2

Mitochondria are subcellular organelles that produce energy in the form of adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) in response to chemical cues. They encode and decode cytosolic calcium (Ca2+) signals, which can boost cellular respiration by regulating mitochondrial enzymes, but can also induce programmed cell death (apoptosis) by controlling the organelle's permeability. The Ca2+ transporters of mitochondria are well characterized functionally but have not been identified. On page 144 of this issue, Jiang et al. (1) show that leucine zipper EF hand–containing transmembrane protein 1 (Letm1) is one of the elusive Ca2+-transport proteins. The transporter may be a good candidate for the pathogenesis of Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, a severe human neurological disease characterized by mental retardation and seizures.

1 Department of Cell Physiology and Metabolism, University of Geneva, 1 Rue Michel-Servet, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
2 Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 279 Campus Drive, Beckman B103, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

E-mail: nicolas.demaurex{at}unige.ch

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)