The mitochondrial pyruvate carrier: has it been unearthed at last?

Abstract

The mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC) is essential for several major pathways of carbohydrate, fat, and amino acid metabolism, yet its molecular identity has remained elusive. Two recent papers in Science (Herzig et al., 2012; Bricker et al., 2012) implicate three newly identified inner mitochondrial membrane proteins as MPC components.