Survivor: Ribosome Edition.

Bacteria owe much of their evolutionary success to the development of mechanisms that enable survival under harsh conditions; despite their importance, however, we have only recently begun to understand these survival strategies. Several of these mechanisms have been shown to target ribosomes, robustly blocking their ability to translate mRNAs into proteins and preserving their integrity in response to extreme environmental conditions. Now, two articles in The EMBO Journal reveal the structural basis of one such strategy, providing new insights and new questions regarding the mechanism and regulation of “ribosome hibernation”.