GTP: gatekeeper for autophagy.

Chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) is involved in cellular quality control, and in the response to stress, deterioration in CMA contributes to the aging phenotype and to various disorders. The paper by Bandyopadhyay et al. in this issue of Molecular Cell demonstrates the role of GTP binding by elongation factor 1 alpha (EF1alpha) in regulating the lysosomal uptake of CMA substrates. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.