Successive duplications of genes encoding translation elongation factors led to the emergence of several protein complexes with different properties. Complex eRF1-eRF3 performs termination of translation, while complex Dom34-Hbs1 is involved in the quality control of mRNA. It was shown that both eRF1 and eRF3 interact not only with each other but also with additional proteins. Possibly, some of these interactions are mutually exclusive as well as some of the eRF1/eRF3-interacting proteins can be components of the translation termination complex. Possible candidates for the last function are poly(A) binding protein (PABP) and Upf proteins (Upf1, Upf2 and Upf3). Interaction with PABP links translation termination with initiation, while interaction with Upf involves eRF proteins in nonsense-mediated decay. The genetic data mostly obtained for S. cerevisiae strongly suggest that the functions of eRF1 and eRF3 are not restricted to translation termination . Further studies are needed to characterize other non-tran