An unusual delivery service

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) Is it better to produce locally or to import? That can be a crucial question for simple lifeforms as well. Mitochondria, the power plants of the cell, have their own protein factories although the cell apparatus could easily do the job for them. A special species of eukaryotes even has all the transfer-RNA it needs for protein assembly promptly delivered. Researchers from the University of Bern have now uncovered how this highly unusual import mechanism works in detail. There are two reasons why trypanosomes, little unicellular organisms, are of special interest for researchers. For one, trypanosomes cause various diseases, including the fatal human sleeping sickness, for which still no good treatment is known. But maybe even more interesting is the biochemical extravaganza the trypanosomes are famous for.