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Moving protein heads for breakdown

Nature volume 398, pages 103–104 (1999)Cite this article

To be broken down, p27 Kip1 — a protein that regulates the cell cycle — must be exported from the nucleus. This unexpected step could turn out to be a general way to regulate the turnover of many nuclear proteins.

The orderly transit of cells through the cell cycle requires a delicate balance between positive and negative regulatory factors. Any alteration in this balance can result in abnormal cell proliferation, which may contribute to cancer. Proteins whose activity is required only at certain stages of the cell cycle can be inactivated by selective protein turnover, and target proteins are often flagged for destruction by the addition of a phosphate group (a process known as phosphorylation). These proteins are then further modified by linkage to a small polypeptide called ubiquitin, and finally digested by proteasomes — large, hollow cylinders containing protein-digesting enzymes which bind to the ubiquitinated proteins and finish them off.

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Figure 1: Suggested pathway for turnover of p27Kip1.

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  1. the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Angewandte Tumorvirologie, Im Neuenheimer Feld 242, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Martin Scheffner

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  1. Martin Scheffner
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Scheffner, M. Moving protein heads for breakdown. Nature 398, 103–104 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18105

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