Stressed-out mitochondria get MAD

Mechanisms maintaining mitochondrial integrity range from specific repair pathways to wholesale degradation of damaged organelles. A recent study in Molecular Cell (Heo et al., 2010) adds another mechanism to this mitochondrial homeostasis toolkit: mitochondria-associated protein degradation (MAD) that ultimately directs endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation (ERAD) pathway components to oxidatively stressed mitochondria.