Ubiquitin ligase News and Research

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New cell death pathway involved in sperm development

Heavy and bulky sperm would not be good swimmers. To trim down, sperm rely on cell death proteins called caspases, which facilitate the removal of unwanted cellular material and radically remodel these cells into their sleek, light shape.

18 Sep 2007

New understanding of male fertility from enzyme discovery

Scientists have discovered a new enzyme involved in the degradation of proteins inside cells, a process that helps eliminate or recycle proteins that are no longer needed.

3 Aug 2007

How auxin regulates TIR1 in plants provides clues to new treatments for human diseases

For the first time, scientists from the University of Washington School of Medicine, Indiana University Bloomington and the University of Cambridge have determined how a plant hormone -- auxin -- interacts with its hormone receptor, called TIR1.

5 Apr 2007

Ubiquitin ligase Rnf6 may be involved in oncogenesis

In a recent study, Dr. Ingolf Bach and colleagues from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester and the University of Hamburg describe a novel role for the ubiquitin/proteosome protein degradation pathway in the regulation of local actin dynamics in neurons.

3 Oct 2005

Why do estrogen-dependent breast-cancer cells grow and spread rapidly?

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say it may be because estrogen virtually eliminates levels of a vitally important regulatory protein.

10 Sep 2005

NIPA levels act as switch regulating cell division

Cells control mitosis (cell division) by assembling a biochemical switch to block it or by disassembling the switch to trigger it, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Technical University of Munich.

18 Jul 2005

Scientists identify novel regulator of telomere homeostasis

Each of our 46 chromosomes is capped by a telomere – a long stretch of repeated DNA (TTAGG). Telomeres play a key protective function in our cells, and now Dr. In Kwon Chung and colleagues at Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) and the University of Central Florida reveal a novel mechanism to modulate telomere length.

3 Apr 2005

Importance of Fbw7 as an emerging tumor suppressor

The DNA tumor virus simian virus 40 produces the Large T antigen which inactivates two of the cell's most important cancer-preventing proteins, p53 and pRb.

27 Feb 2005

Protein in cardiac muscle cells may play a crucial role in heart failure prevention

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein in cardiac muscle cells may play a crucial role in heart failure prevention.

5 Jan 2005

Ubiquitination protects against improper Notch signaling

The Notch pathway is an important molecular signaling mechanism whose existence has been known, or at least hinted at, for nearly a century since the identification of a mutant strain of Drosophila fruit flies with "notched" wings in Thomas Hunt Morgan's lab in 1910.

28 Dec 2004

Studies reveal complex molecular choreography with implications for human health and disease

As interactions of cellular proteins increasingly take center stage in basic biomedical research, studies are revealing a complex molecular choreography with implications for human health and disease.

10 Oct 2004