Rad23 and Rpn10 play synergistic roles in the recognition of ubiquitinated proteins by the proteasome, and loss of both proteins causes growth and proteolytic defects. However, the physiological targets of Rad23 and Rpn10 have not been well defined. We report that rad23⌬ rpn10⌬ is unable to grow in the presence of translation inhibitors, and this sensitivity was suppressed by translation elongation factor 1A (eEF1A). This discovery suggested that Rad23 and Rpn10 perform a role in translation quality control. Certain inhibitors increase translation errors during protein synthesis and cause the release of truncated polypeptide chains. This effect can also be mimicked by ATP depletion. We determined that eEF1A interacted with ubiquitinated proteins and the proteasome following ATP depletion. eEF1A interacted with the proteasome subunit Rpt1, and the turnover of nascent damaged proteins was deficient in rpt1. An eEF1A mutant (eEF1A D156N ) that conferred hyperresistance to translation inhibitors was much more effective at eliminating damaged proteins and was detected in proteasomes in untreated cells. We propose that eEF1A is well suited to detect and promote degradation of damaged proteins because of its central role in translation elongation. Our findings provide a mechanistic foundation for defining how cellular proteins are degraded cotranslationally.Rad23 and Rpn10 can interact with multiubiquitinated proteins (6, 28, 38) and the proteasome (32), and several recent studies have indicated that they contribute to the degradation of ubiquitinated proteins by the proteasome (6, 9, 21, 24). Loss of both proteins results in temperature-sensitive growth, defects in proteolysis, and a delay in the G 2 phase of the cell cycle (22). We isolated yeast TEF1, a gene encoding the eukaryotic translation elongation factor 1A (eEF1A) (15), as a dosage suppressor of the cold (13°C) sensitivity of rad23⌬ rpn10⌬ (22). eEF1A promotes translation elongation through the binding and release of aminoacyl tRNAs, in a process that is coupled to GTP hydrolysis (15). In addition to its well-characterized role in translation elongation, in vitro studies showed that eEF1A could bind nascent as well as unfolded peptides and proteins (17,23). eEF1A might possess a chaperone-like activity that prevents the aggregation of nascent polypeptide chains (4), since it could bind an unfolded protein but not a correctly folded counterpart (17). eEF1A could also stimulate the degradation of N␣-acetylated proteins (12). The isolation of eEF1A as a suppressor of rad23⌬ rpn10⌬ suggested that it performs a central role in monitoring the accuracy of protein synthesis. These studies also revealed an important function for Rad23 and Rpn10 in protein synthesis quality control.A significant fraction of newly synthesized proteins is degraded cotranslationally (29,33,35). These nascent damaged proteins can be ubiquitinated while bound to the ribosome (31), demonstrating that there exists a close coupling between the pathways of protein synthesis and protein degrada...