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Technologies

Seeing ubiquitin chains

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 13, pages 540–541 (2012)Cite this article

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Earlier this year, Cohen and colleagues made a key advance by designing a protein sensor that was specific for Lys63-linked polyubiquitin and so allowed the visualization and functional study of this type of linkage in vivo. Dikic and colleagues now report the development of two fluorescence-based sensors, one specific for Met1-linked chains (also called linear chains) and one specific for Lys63-linked chains, allowing the visualization of distinct chains.

The sensor for linear ubiquitin chains was obtained by fusing GFP to the murine UBAN (ubiquitin-binding in ABIN and NEMO) domain, and the sensor for Lys63-linked chains was constructed by fusing GFP to the NZF (nuclear protein localization 4 zinc-finger) domain of human TAB2 (TAK1-binding protein 2).

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Change history

  • 16 August 2012

    This highlight previously contained the statement; “Until now, investigating ubiquitin signals has been technically limited and relied on chain-specific antibodies for studies in vitro and in fixed cells.” This was incorrect, as Cohen and colleagues previously reported the development of protein sensors specific for Lys63-linked polyubiquitin, which can be expressed in live cells to track these signals and be used as specific competitive inhibitors (Nature Meth. 9, 303–309 (2012)). We apologize to the authors of this study for this omission. The highlight has been edited to acknowledge the contribution of this earlier study.

References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. van Wijk S. J. L. et al. Fluorescence-based sensors to monitor localization and functions of linear and K63-linked ubiquitin chains in cells. Mol. Cell 19 Jul 2012 (doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2012.06.017)

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FURTHER READING

  1. Sims J. J. et al. Polyubiquitin-sensor proteins reveal localization and linkage-type dependence of cellular ubiquitin signaling. Nature Meth. 9, 303–309 (2012)

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Authors
  1. Kim Baumann
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Baumann, K. Seeing ubiquitin chains. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 13, 540–541 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm3413

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