Yong Tae Kwon

A subset of proteins targeted by the N-end rule pathway bear degradation signals called N-degrons, whose determinants include destabilizing N-terminal residues. Our previous work identified mouse UBR1 and UBR2 as E3 ubiquitin ligases that recognize N-degrons. Such E3s are called N-recognins. We report here that while double-mutant UBR1(-/-) UBR2(-/-) mice die as early embryos, the rescued UBR1(-/-) UBR2(-/-) fibroblasts still retain the N-end rule pathway, albeit of lower activity than that of w

The enzymatic conjugation of arginine to the N-termini of proteins is a part of the ubiquitin-dependent N-end rule pathway of protein degradation. In mammals, three N-terminal residues-aspartate, glutamate, and cysteine-are substrates for arginylation. The mouse ATE1 gene encodes a family of Arg-tRNA-protein transferases (R-transferases) that mediate N-terminal arginylation. We constructed ATE1-lacking mouse strains and found that ATE1-/- embryos die with defects in heart development and in angi

Protein homeostasis (proteostasis) requires the timely degradation of misfolded proteins and their aggregates by protein quality control (PQC), of which molecular chaperones are an essential component. Compared with other cell types, PQC in neurons is particularly challenging because they have a unique cellular structure with long extensions. Making it worse, neurons are postmitotic, i.e., cannot dilute toxic substances by division, and, thus, are highly sensitive to misfolded proteins, especial

The N-end rule relates the in vivo half-life of a protein to the identity of its N-terminal residue. The N-end rule pathway is one proteolytic pathway of the ubiquitin system. The recognition component of this pathway, called N-recognin or E3, binds to a destabilizing N-terminal residue of a substrate protein and participates in the formation of a substrate-linked multiubiquitin chain. We report the cloning of the mouse and human Ubr1 cDNAs and genes that encode a mammalian N-recognin called E3a

The N-end rule relates the in vivo half-life of a protein to the identity of its N-terminal residue. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the UBR1-encoded ubiquitin ligase (E3) of the N-end rule pathway mediates the targeting of substrate proteins in part through binding to their destabilizing N-terminal residues. The functions of the yeast N-end rule pathway include fidelity of chromosome segregation and the regulation of peptide import. Our previous work described the cloning of cDNA and a g

Substrates of the ubiquitin-dependent N-end rule pathway include proteins with destabilizing N-terminal residues. UBR1(-/-) mice, which lacked the pathway's ubiquitin ligase E3alpha, were viable and retained the N-end rule pathway. The present work describes the identification and analysis of mouse UBR2, a homolog of UBR1. We demonstrate that the substrate-binding properties of UBR2 are highly similar to those of UBR1, identifying UBR2 as the second E3 of the mammalian N-end rule pathway. UBR2(-

The N-end rule relates the in vivo half-life of a protein to the identity of its N-terminal residue. The underlying ubiquitin-dependent proteolytic system, called the N-end rule pathway, is organized hierarchically: N-terminal aspartate and glutamate (and also cysteine in metazoans) are secondary destabilizing residues, in that they function through their conjugation, by arginyl-tRNA-protein transferase (R-transferase), to arginine, a primary destabilizing residue. We isolated cDNA encoding the

The N-end rule relates the in vivo half-life of a protein to the identity of its N-terminal residue. N-terminal asparagine and glutamine are tertiary destabilizing residues, in that they are enzymatically deamidated to yield secondary destabilizing residues aspartate and glutamate, which are conjugated to arginine, a primary destabilizing residue. N-terminal arginine of a substrate protein is bound by the Ubr1-encoded E3alpha, the E3 component of the ubiquitin-proteasome-dependent N-end rule pat

Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are important in tumor progression. The autophagy adaptor protein, p62/SQSTM1/Sequestosome-1, is up-regulated in tumors, but down-regulated in CAFs in the early stages of lung adenocarcinoma. We investigated whether p62-induced autophagy might control CAF activation. Under CAF-inducing conditions, like hypoxia or cancer cell co-cultures, p62 ablation or autophagy inhibition with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) impaired CAF activation and reduced transforming growth

The N-degron pathway is a proteolytic system in which the N-terminal degrons (N-degrons) of proteins, such as arginine (Nt-Arg), induce the degradation of proteins and subcellular organelles via the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) or macroautophagy/autophagy-lysosome system (hereafter autophagy). Here, we developed the chemical mimics of the N-degron Nt-Arg as a pharmaceutical means to induce targeted degradation of intracellular bacteria via autophagy, such as <i>Salmonella enterica</i> serov

BiP and other endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident proteins are thought to be metabolically stable and to function primarily in the ER lumen. We sought to assess how the abundance of these proteins dynamically fluctuates in response to various stresses and how their subpopulations are relocated to non-ER compartments such as the cytosol. We showed that the molecular chaperone BiP (also known as GRP78) was short-lived under basal conditions and ER stress. The turnover of BiP was in part driven by

In macroautophagy/autophagy, cargoes are collected by specific receptors, such as SQSTM1/p62 (sequestosome 1), and delivered to phagophores for lysosomal degradation. To date, little is known about how cells modulate SQSTM1 activity and autophagosome biogenesis in response to accumulating cargoes. In this study, we show that SQSTM1 is an N-recognin whose ZZ domain binds N-terminal arginine (Nt-Arg) and other N-degrons (Nt-Lys, Nt-His, Nt-Trp, Nt-Phe, and Nt-Tyr) of the N-end rule pathway. The su