bring over chaperones and proteasomes and activate autophagy. Elimination There are two main protein quality control systems in the cell that are responsible for eliminating protein aggregates. Misfolded proteins can get refolded by the bi-chaperone system or degraded by the ubiquitin proteasome system or autophagy. Refolding The bi-chaperone system utilizes the Hsp70 (DnaK-DnaJ-GrpE in E. coli and Ssa1-Ydj1/Sis1-Sse1/Fe1 in yeast) and Hsp100 (ClpB in E. coli and Hsp104 in yeast) chaperones for protein disaggregation and refolding. Hsp70 interacts with the protein aggregates and recruits Hsp100. Hsp70 stabilizes an activated Hsp100. Hsp100 proteins have aromatic pore loops that are used for threading activity to disentangle single polypeptides. This threading activity can be initiated at the N-terminus, C-terminus or in the middle of the polypeptide. The polypeptide gets translocated through Hsp100 in a series of steps, utilizing an ATP at each step. The polypeptide unfolds and is then allowed to refold either by itself or with the help of heat shock proteins. Degradation Misfolded proteins can be eliminated through the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). This consists of an E1-E2-E3 pathway that ubiquinates proteins to mark them for degradation. In eukaryotes, the proteins get degraded by the 26S proteasome. In mammalian cells, the E3 ligase, carboxy-terminal Hsp70 interacting protein (CHIP), targets Hsp70-bound proteins. In yeast, the E3 ligases Doa10 and Hrd1 have similar functions on endoplasmic reticulum proteins. On the molecular level, degradation rate of aggregates vary from protein to protein due to their different internal environments, and thus different accessibility for protease molecules. Misfolded proteins can also be eliminated through autophagy, in which the protein aggregates are delivered to the lysosome. Toxicity Although it has been thought that the mature protein aggregates themselves are toxic, evidence suggests that it is in fact immature protein aggregates that are most toxic. The hydrophobic patches of these aggregates can interact with other components of the cell and damage them. The hypotheses are that the toxicity of protein aggregates is related to mechanisms of the sequestration of cellular components, the generation of reactive oxygen species and the binding to specific receptors in the membrane or through the disruption of membranes. A quantitative assay has been used to determine that higher molecular weight species are responsible for the membrane permeation. It is known that protein aggregates in vitro can destabilize artificial phospholipid bilayers, leading to permeabilization of the membrane. In biomanufacturing Protein aggregation is also a common phenomenon