The Endoplasmic Reticulum-Mitochondria Encounter Structure and its Regulatory Proteins

Javairia Y Cheema; Jiajia He; Wenfan Wei; Chuanhai Fu

doi:10.1177/25152564211064491

The Endoplasmic Reticulum-Mitochondria Encounter Structure and its Regulatory Proteins

Contact (Thousand Oaks). 2021 Dec 6:4:25152564211064491. doi: 10.1177/25152564211064491. eCollection 2021 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Javairia Y Cheema¹, Jiajia He¹, Wenfan Wei¹, Chuanhai Fu¹

Affiliation

¹ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Cellular Dynamics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Sciences, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, School of Life Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, P.R. China.

Abstract

In fungi, the endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria encounter structure (ERMES) is present between the endoplasmic reticulon (ER) and mitochondria to promote the formation of the ER-mitochondria contact sites. Four constitutive components (Mmm1, Mdm12, Mdm34, and Mdm10) assemble to form the ERMES complex while regulator proteins are required for regulating the organization and function of the ERMES complex. Multiple regulator proteins, including Gem1, Lam6, Tom7, and Emr1, of the ERMES complex, have been identified recently. In this review, we discuss the organization of the ERMES complex and the roles of the regulator proteins of the ERMES complex.

Keywords: ER; ERMES; membrane contact sites; mitochondria.

Publication types

Review