Sumoylation articles from across Nature Portfolio

Maintaining a healthy nuclear proteome during DNA damage is important but its regulation is poorly understood. The authors here show that a SUMO modification of the small heat shock protein Btn2 regulates yeast nuclear protein sequestration during stress.

Insulin secretion adapts to metabolic needs, but how this happens over the short term is not clear. Here the authors show this involves upregulation of beta-cell exocytosis and requires the SUMO-protease SENP1, which responds to redox state in a zinc-dependent manner.

Here, the authors show that TRIM28-mediated SUMOylation of SARS-CoV-2 NP is critical for its liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) property and subsequent inhibition of innate antiviral immunity. The peptide NSIP-III is applied to unleash such connection by interfering TRIM28 and NP interaction.

Post-translational modifications including protein sumoylation is under specific regulation in glioma stem cells (GSCs). Here, the authors show that Pin1 is deubiquitinated and stabilized by USP34, which in turn promotes isomerization of Ubc9, leading to SUMO1-modified global hypersumoylation to maintain the tumorigenic capacity of GSCs.

Ribosome biogenesis is tightly coordinated with cell-cycle progression. By characterizing the SUMO isopeptidases SENP3/SENP5, Doenig et al. identify a long-sought p53-independent impaired ribosome checkpoint that converges on downregulation of CDK6.

Here, the authors describe BioE3, a biotin-based method to discriminate direct substrates of ubiquitin E3 ligases of interest from mere interactors using proximity proteomics. BioE3 responds to chemical treatments, and works with RING- and HECT-type E3s, as well as ubiquitin-likes (e.g., SUMO).

Genome-scale CRISPR–Cas9 screens have identified genetic backgrounds that are vulnerable to inhibition of the SUMO modification pathway in human cells. These findings reveal that protein SUMOylation is essential for cell proliferation owing to a key role in complementary catenane resolution pathways that operate in interphase and mitosis to resolve intertwined DNA structures.

Understanding how cancers react to poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) trapping on DNA is crucial to thwart PARP inhibitor resistance. A recent study finds that trapped PARP1 is removed via the ubiquitin-dependent segregase p97, and that perturbing this molecular cascade increases PARP inhibitor cytotoxicity.

Sumoylation of MCM inhibits DNA replication initiation by counteracting the function of the kinases that activate MCM; the loss of MCM sumoylation coincides with origin firing.