Protein hijacking: Key proteins held captive against their will

Proteins travel to their appropriate intracellular homes by means of the targeting signals they carry. It now seems that a short, but important, list of key regulatory proteins are victims of protein hijacking: Bid, Bim, NF-κB, SREBP, and perhaps the intracellular portion of MUC1. These provide critical functions within a particular subcellular compartment, but are initially prevented from finding their way to this intracellular home. Only in response to specific physiological signals are these proteins released to find the site at which they act.