C16ORF70/MYTHO promotes healthy aging in C.elegans and prevents cellular senescence in mammals.

The identification of genes that confer either extension of life span or accelerate age-related decline was a step forward in understanding the mechanisms of aging and revealed that it is partially controlled by genetics and transcriptional programs. Here, we discovered that the human DNA sequence C16ORF70 encodes a protein, named MYTHO (macroautophagy and youth optimizer), which controls life span and health span. MYTHO protein is conserved from Caenorhabditis elegans to humans and its mRNA was upregulated in aged mice and elderly people.

Structural basis for the toxicity of Legionella pneumophila effector SidH.

Legionella pneumophila (LP) secretes more than 300 effectors into the host cytosol to facilitate intracellular replication. One of these effectors, SidH, 253 kDa in size with no sequence similarity to proteins of known function is toxic when overexpressed in host cells. SidH is regulated by the LP metaeffector LubX which targets SidH for degradation in a temporal manner during LP infection.

LAMTOR1 ubiquitination restricts its interaction with the vacuolar-type H-ATPase, promotes autophagy and is controlled by USP32.

Among the various signals governing autophagy, ubiquitination plays a critical role both by controlling the stability of upstream regulators or components of macroautophagy/autophagy pathways and by facilitating the recruitment of cargo to autophagy receptors. As such, modulators of ubiquitin signaling can influence autophagic substrate degradation. Recently, we identified a non-proteolytic ubiquitin signal at the Ragulator complex subunit LAMTOR1 that is reversed by the deubiquitinase USP32.

USP32-regulated LAMTOR1 ubiquitination impacts mTORC1 activation and autophagy induction.

The endosomal-lysosomal system is a series of organelles in the endocytic pathway that executes trafficking and degradation of proteins and lipids and mediates the internalization of nutrients and growth factors to ensure cell survival, growth, and differentiation. Here, we reveal regulatory, non-proteolytic ubiquitin signals in this complex system that are controlled by the enigmatic deubiquitinase USP32. Knockout (KO) of USP32 in primary hTERT-RPE1 cells results among others in hyperubiquitination of the Ragulator complex subunit LAMTOR1.

The deubiquitinase USP11 is a versatile and conserved regulator of autophagy.

Autophagy is a major cellular quality control system responsible for the degradation of proteins and organelles in response to stress and damage to maintain homeostasis. Ubiquitination of autophagy-related proteins or regulatory components is important for the precise control of autophagy pathways. Here, we show that the deubiquitinase ubiquitin-specific protease 11 (USP11) restricts autophagy and that KO of USP11 in mammalian cells results in elevated autophagic flux.

Integrative analysis of epigenetics data identifies gene-specific regulatory elements.

Understanding how epigenetic variation in non-coding regions is involved in distal gene-expression regulation is an important problem. Regulatory regions can be associated to genes using large-scale datasets of epigenetic and expression data. However, for regions of complex epigenomic signals and enhancers that regulate many genes, it is difficult to understand these associations.

Biochemical characterization of protease activity of Nsp3 from SARS-CoV-2 and its inhibition by nanobodies.

Of the 16 non-structural proteins (Nsps) encoded by SARS CoV-2, Nsp3 is the largest and plays important roles in the viral life cycle. Being a large, multidomain, transmembrane protein, Nsp3 has been the most challenging Nsp to characterize. Encoded within Nsp3 is the papain-like protease domain (PLpro) that cleaves not only the viral polypeptide but also K48-linked polyubiquitin and the ubiquitin-like modifier, ISG15, from host cell proteins.

A subcellular map of the human kinome.

The human kinome comprises 538 kinases playing essential functions by catalyzing protein phosphorylation. Annotation of subcellular distribution of the kinome greatly facilitates investigation of normal and disease mechanisms. Here, we present Kinome Atlas (KA), an image-based map of the kinome annotated to 10 cellular compartments.

Functional Genomics Approaches to Elucidate Vulnerabilities of Intrinsic and Acquired Chemotherapy Resistance.

Drug resistance is a commonly unavoidable consequence of cancer treatment that results in therapy failure and disease relapse. Intrinsic (pre-existing) or acquired resistance mechanisms can be drug-specific or be applicable to multiple drugs, resulting in multidrug resistance. The presence of drug resistance is, however, tightly coupled to changes in cellular homeostasis, which can lead to resistance-coupled vulnerabilities.

Hug and hold tight: Dimerization controls the turnover of the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme UBE2S.

Precise control of the activity and abundance of ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes (E2s) ensures fidelity in ubiquitin chain synthesis. In this issue of , Liess demonstrate that the human anaphase-promoting complex (APC/C)-associated E2 UBE2S adopts an autoinhibited dimeric state that increases the half-life of UBE2S by preventing its autoubiquitination-driven turnover.

MiT/TFE factors control ER-phagy via transcriptional regulation of FAM134B.

Lysosomal degradation of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) via autophagy (ER-phagy) is emerging as a critical regulator of cell homeostasis and function. The recent identification of ER-phagy receptors has shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlining this process. However, the signaling pathways regulating ER-phagy in response to cellular needs are still largely unknown.

Conformation-specific inhibitors of activated Ras GTPases reveal limited Ras dependency of patient-derived cancer organoids.

The small GTPases H, K, and NRAS are molecular switches indispensable for proper regulation of cellular proliferation and growth. Several mutations in the genes encoding members of this protein family are associated with cancer and result in aberrant activation of signaling processes caused by a deregulated recruitment of downstream effector proteins. In this study, we engineered variants of the Ras-binding domain (RBD) of the C-Raf proto-oncogene, Ser/Thr kinase (CRAF).

Circular synthesized CRISPR/Cas gRNAs for functional interrogations in the coding and noncoding genome.

Current technologies used to generate CRISPR/Cas gene perturbation reagents are labor intense and require multiple ligation and cloning steps. Furthermore, increasing gRNA sequence diversity negatively affects gRNA distribution, leading to libraries of heterogeneous quality. Here, we present a rapid and cloning-free mutagenesis technology that can efficiently generate covalently-closed-circular-synthesized (3Cs) CRISPR/Cas gRNA reagents and that uncouples sequence diversity from sequence distribution.

A selective ER-phagy exerts procollagen quality control via a Calnexin-FAM134B complex.

Autophagy is a cytosolic quality control process that recognizes substrates through receptor-mediated mechanisms. Procollagens, the most abundant gene products in Metazoa, are synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and a fraction that fails to attain the native structure is cleared by autophagy. However, how autophagy selectively recognizes misfolded procollagens in the ER lumen is still unknown.

ER-phagy at a glance.

Selective autophagy represents the major quality control mechanism that ensures proper turnover of exhausted or harmful organelles, among them the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which is fragmented and delivered to the lysosome for degradation via a specific type of autophagy called ER-phagy. The recent discovery of ER-resident proteins that bind to mammalian Atg8 proteins has revealed that the selective elimination of ER involves different receptors that are specific for different ER subdomains or ER stresses. FAM134B (also known as RETREG1) and RTN3 are reticulon-type proteins that are able to remodel the ER network and ensure the basal membrane turnover.

Insights into catalysis and function of phosphoribosyl-linked serine ubiquitination.

Conventional ubiquitination regulates key cellular processes by catalysing the ATP-dependent formation of an isopeptide bond between ubiquitin (Ub) and primary amines in substrate proteins . Recently, the SidE family of bacterial effector proteins (SdeA, SdeB, SdeC and SidE) from pathogenic Legionella pneumophila were shown to use NAD to mediate phosphoribosyl-linked ubiquitination of serine residues in host proteins. However, the molecular architecture of the catalytic platform that enables this complex multistep process remains unknown.

Heterotypic Ubiquitin Chains: Seeing is Believing.

The biological diversity of ubiquitination resides in the multivalent nature of linkage-specific homotypic and heterotypic ubiquitin (Ub) chains. A recent publication by Yau et al. in Cell describes the development of K11/K48-bispecific antibodies and a physiological role for K11/K48 heterotypic chains in regulation of the cell cycle and clearance of aggregated proteins.

Ubiquitin signaling and autophagy.

Ubiquitination is a widespread post-translational modification that controls multiple steps in autophagy, a major lysosome-mediated intracellular degradation pathway. A variety of ubiquitin chains are attached as selective labels on protein aggregates and dysfunctional organelles, thus promoting their autophagy-dependent degradation. Moreover, ubiquitin modification of autophagy regulatory components is essential to positively or negatively regulate autophagy flux in both non-selective and selective pathways.

Regulation of Salmonella-host cell interactions via the ubiquitin system.

Salmonella infections cause acute intestinal inflammatory responses through the action of bacterial effector proteins secreted into the host cytosol. These proteins promote Salmonella survival, amongst others, by deregulating the host innate immune system and interfering with host cell ubiquitylation signaling. This review describes the recent findings of dynamic changes of the host ubiquitinome during pathogen infection, how bacterial effector proteins modulate the host ubiquitin system and how the host innate immune system counteracts Salmonella invasion by using these pathogens as signaling platforms to initiate immune responses.

Internally tagged ubiquitin: a tool to identify linear polyubiquitin-modified proteins by mass spectrometry.

Ubiquitination controls a plethora of cellular processes. Modifications by linear polyubiquitin have so far been linked with acquired and innate immunity, lymphocyte development and genotoxic stress response. Until now, a single E3 ligase complex (LUBAC), one specific deubiquitinase (OTULIN) and a very few linear polyubiquitinated substrates have been identified.