Variable repeats in the eukaryotic polyubiquitin gene ubi4 modulate proteostasis and stress survival

Rita Gemayel, Yudi Yang, Maria C. Dzialo, Jacek Kominek, Jakob Vowinckel, Veerle Saels, Leen Van Huffel, Elisa van der Zande, Markus Ralser, Jan Steensels, Karin Voordeckers and Kevin J. Verstrepen ()
Additional contact information
Rita Gemayel: VIB Center for Microbiology
Yudi Yang: VIB Center for Microbiology
Maria C. Dzialo: VIB Center for Microbiology
Jacek Kominek: VIB Center for Microbiology
Jakob Vowinckel: University of Cambridge
Veerle Saels: VIB Center for Microbiology
Leen Van Huffel: VIB Center for Microbiology
Elisa van der Zande: VIB Center for Microbiology
Markus Ralser: University of Cambridge
Jan Steensels: VIB Center for Microbiology
Karin Voordeckers: VIB Center for Microbiology
Kevin J. Verstrepen: VIB Center for Microbiology

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Ubiquitin conjugation signals for selective protein degradation by the proteasome. In eukaryotes, ubiquitin is encoded both as a monomeric ubiquitin unit fused to a ribosomal gene and as multiple ubiquitin units in tandem. The polyubiquitin gene is a unique, highly conserved open reading frame composed solely of tandem repeats, yet it is still unclear why cells utilize this unusual gene structure. Using the Saccharomyces cerevisiae UBI4 gene, we show that this multi-unit structure allows cells to rapidly produce large amounts of ubiquitin needed to respond to sudden stress. The number of ubiquitin units encoded by UBI4 influences cellular survival and the rate of ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS)-mediated proteolysis following heat stress. Interestingly, the optimal number of repeats varies under different types of stress indicating that natural variation in repeat numbers may optimize the chance for survival. Our results demonstrate how a variable polycistronic transcript provides an evolutionary alternative for gene copy number variation.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00533-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-00533-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00533-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().