Pathway · 3 proteins
Recycling and rescue
Recycling and SmpB-associated rescue help recover stalled translation.
How it works
- A stalled or completed translation complex must be resolved by the appropriate route.
- Rescue can release blocked ribosomes and help mark or dispose of defective products. Recycling dissociates components after termination.
- These processes restore usable machinery and connect translation to quality control; distinct rescue pathways have different substrates and partners.
Grouped by the atlas’s curated pathway map. The table order is not a proven reaction order.
Its proteins
| Protein | EC | Reaction (UniProt) | Metal or cluster | Amino acids | Certainty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ribosome maturation factor RimM | — | — | — | 166 | Step named |
| Ribosome maturation factor RimP | — | — | — | 158 | Step named |
| Ribosome-recycling factor | — | — | — | 184 | Step named |
Also part of this pathway
These proteins are described under another pathway, but also take part here.
| Protein | EC | Reaction (UniProt) | Metal or cluster | Amino acids | Certainty |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SsrA-binding proteinHome: Not yet placed in a pathway | — | — | — | 157 | Unspecified |
Origins
What happens when a ribosome stalls on a broken message, and how was that handled before rescue systems existed?
tmRNA acts first as a transfer RNA and then as a messenger RNA. Some authors propose it represents the kind of molecule present in a late RNA world.
Without rescue, every broken message would trap a ribosome. tmRNA and its partner protein free the ribosome and tag the unfinished protein for destruction, so the cell needs both a way to make proteins and a way to undo failed ones.
From the books: Ribas de Pouplana (ed.), The Genetic Code and the Origin of Life, PDF p. 106; Slonczewski & Foster, Microbiology, p. 282.
The wider question for this part of the cell: origins for building proteins and folding them.
Sources
- Atlas pathway grouping from the VF5 reference-genome system map (Deckert et al. 1998; Braakman & Smith 2014)
Other pathways in this group: Ribosomal subunits · Translation interface · RNA maturation · Translation cycle · Protein translocation · Protein turnover · Folding and stabilization · Early folding support · Protein targeting · Ribosome · Protein export · Not yet placed in a pathway