The ribosome receptors Mrx15 and Mba1 jointly organize cotranslational insertion and protein biogenesis in mitochondria.

Mitochondrial gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae is responsible for the production of highly hydrophobic subunits of the oxidative phosphorylation system. Membrane insertion occurs cotranslationally on membrane-bound mitochondrial ribosomes. Here, by employing a systematic mass spectrometry-based approach, we discovered the previously uncharacterized membrane protein Mrx15 that interacts via a soluble C-terminal domain with the large ribosomal subunit. Mrx15 contacts mitochondrial translation products during their synthesis and plays, together with the ribosome receptor Mba1, an overlapping role in cotranslational protein insertion. Taken together, our data reveal how these ribosome receptors organize membrane protein biogenesis in mitochondria.