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Total chemical and semisynthetic approaches for the preparation of ubiquitinated proteins and their applications

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Abstract

Protein ubiquitination is an important post-translational modification (PTM) in eukaryotic organisms that regulates a variety of cellular processes, such as protein degradation, signal transduction, apoptosis, and DNA damage tolerance. To decipher mechanistically the diverse biological functions of ubiquitination, homogeneous ubiquitinated proteins are greatly needed. Although direct isolation from cell source and in vitro enzymatic methods can be used to produce such proteins, these methods often suffer from problems of low yield or heterogeneous products. Comparably, total chemical and semisynthetic approaches offer good alternatives to produce the ubiquitinated proteins with high purity and selectivity. This review summarizes the recent developments of protein ubiquitination strategies and the use of the synthesized proteins to help garner structural and functional insight into the inner workings of the ubiquitin system.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd of Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) of Singapore (ETPL-QP-19-06).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 637551, Singapore

    Xiaobao Bi, Kalyan Kumar Pasunooti & Chuan-Fa Liu

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  1. Xiaobao Bi
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  2. Kalyan Kumar Pasunooti
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  3. Chuan-Fa Liu
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Correspondence to Chuan-Fa Liu.

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Bi, X., Pasunooti, K.K. & Liu, CF. Total chemical and semisynthetic approaches for the preparation of ubiquitinated proteins and their applications. Sci. China Chem. 61, 251–265 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-017-9122-3

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