Figure 3.

Lon balances normal degradation with stress related duties. (a) Lon maintains homeostasis by balancing two main functions: protein quality control and destruction of natively folded substrates. (b) Stress results in the accumulation of native or damaged proteins that may saturate Lon and result in a subsequent build up of other substrates. (c). Allosteric activation of Lon by ligands or misfolded proteins can compensate for the extra protease demand in stress conditions. (d) Saturation of Lon can also be compensated for through upregulation of other proteases, such as ClpAP, which has some overlapping specificity with Lon.