A Pit Stop at the ER

Abstract

Although ligand activation of receptor signaling is well understood, less is known about how a cell switches off signaling by the activated receptor. In his Perspective, Gill discusses new work ( Haj et al.) that visualizes one step in the process of deactivating a ligand-activated receptor tyrosine kinase--the dephosphorylation of the internalized receptor by a phosphatase in the endoplasmic reticulum.