Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P62988 (Ubiquitin)
 4,326 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Development of the nervous system requires that timely withdrawal from the cell cycle be coupled with initiation of differentiation. Ubiquitin-mediated degradation of the N-Myc oncoprotein in neural stem/progenitor cells is thought to trigger the arrest of proliferation and begin differentiation. Here we report that the HECT-domain ubiquitin ligase Huwe1 ubiquitinates the N-Myc oncoprotein through Lys 48-mediated linkages and targets it for destruction by the proteasome. This process is physiologically implemented by embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiating along the neuronal lineage and in the mouse brain during development. Genetic and RNA interference-mediated inactivation of the Huwe1 gene impedes N-Myc degradation, prevents exit from the cell cycle by opposing the expression of Cdk inhibitors and blocks differentiation through persistent inhibition of early and late markers of neuronal differentiation. Silencing of N-myc in cells lacking Huwe1 restores neural differentiation of ES cells and rescues cell-cycle exit and differentiation of the mouse cortex, demonstrating that Huwe1 restrains proliferation and enables neuronal differentiation by mediating the degradation of N-Myc. These findings indicate that Huwe1 links destruction of N-Myc to the quiescent state that complements differentiation in the neural tissue.
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PMID:The HECT-domain ubiquitin ligase Huwe1 controls neural differentiation and proliferation by destabilizing the N-Myc oncoprotein. 1848 21

N-myc Downstream Regulated Gene 1 (NDRG1) is a metastasis suppressor protein which suppresses metastasis without affecting primary tumorigenesis. There have been many reports about the anti-metastatic function of NDRG1 in various cancers. However, the regulatory mechanism of NDRG1 at the protein level has not been studied widely. Here, we found that NDRG1 is posttranslationally modified by Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO), preferentially by SUMO-2, and the major SUMO acceptor site of NDRG1 is Lys 14. Using various SUMO-2 modification status mimicking NDRG1 mutants, we characterized the role of SUMO-2 modification on NDRG1. SUMO-2 modification does not affect the subcellular distribution of NDRG1. However, the protein stability of NDRG1 is influenced by SUMO-2 modification. We found that both the wildtype and the SUMO modification site mutant form of the NDRG1 protein were very stable but the protein stability of SUMO-2 fused NDRG1 K14R had dramatically decreased. In addition, the expression of p21 is downregulated by overexpression of SUMO-2 fused NDRG1 K14R mutants. These results indicate that SUMO-2 modification is implicated in the modulation of NDRG1 protein level and function. This novel link between SUMO modification and regulation of NDRG1 could be a therapeutic target for treatment of various metastatic cancers.
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PMID:SUMO modification regulates the protein stability of NDRG1. 2571 28