Oxidative protein folding in the secretory pathway and redox signaling across compartments and cells

Abstract

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is central for many essential cellular activities, such as folding, assembly and quality control of secretory and membrane proteins, disulfide bond formation, glycosylation, lipid biosynthesis, Ca(2+) storage and signaling. In addition, this multifunctional organelle integrates many adaptive and/or maladaptive signaling cues reporting on metabolism, proteostasis, Ca(2+) and redox homeostasis. We are beginning to understand how these functions and pathways are integrated with one another to regulate homeostasis at cell, tissue and organism levels. The mechanisms underlying the introduction of the proper set of disulfide bonds into secretory proteins (oxidative folding) are strictly related to redox homeostasis, ER stress sensing and signaling and provide a good example of the integration systems operative in the early secretory compartment.