Through a combination of structural and biochemical approaches on the Pan2–Pan3 mRNA deadenylation complex, new work from the lab shows that the function of the “adapter” subunit Pan3 is to provide substrate RNA to the exonuclease subunit Pan2. Our work is published online in EMBOJ.

Also see the Have You Seen? commentary by Stubbs and Wahle and a News & Views article by Martin and Coller.