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Mechanism of ubiquitin ligation and lysine prioritization by a HECT E3
Open accessAbstract
Ubiquitination by HECT E3 enzymes regulates myriad processes, including tumor suppression, transcription, protein trafficking, and degradation. HECT E3s use a two-step mechanism to ligate ubiquitin to target proteins. The first step is guided by interactions between the catalytic HECT domain and the E2∼ubiquitin intermediate, which promote formation of a transient, thioester-bonded HECT∼ubiquitin intermediate. Here we report that the second step of ligation is mediated by a distinct catalytic architecture established by both the HECT E3 and its covalently linked ubiquitin. The structure of a chemically trapped proxy for an E3∼ubiquitin-substrate intermediate reveals three-way interactions between ubiquitin and the bilobal HECT domain orienting the E3∼ubiquitin thioester bond for ligation, and restricting the location of the substrate-binding domain to prioritize target lysines for ubiquitination. The data allow visualization of an E2-to-E3-to-substrate ubiquitin transfer cascade, and show how HECT-specific ubiquitin interactions driving multiple reactions are repurposed by a major E3 conformational change to promote ligation.
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“The second class, HECT ligases, bind the target then use an intermediate strategy of transferring ubiquitin onto themselves before transferring ubiquitin to the target112,113.”
From PROTAC targeted protein degraders: the past is prologue (2022) · cites this paper as [113]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Kamadurai, H. B., Qiu, Y., Deng, A., Harrison, J. S., MacDonald, C., Actis, M., Rodrigues, P., Miller, D. J., Souphron, J., Lewis, S. M., Kurinov, I., Fujii, N., Hammel, M., Piper, R., Kuhlman, B., & Schulman, B. A.
- Affiliations
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (US)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- University of Iowa (US)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Cornell University (US)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kamadurai, Hari B
- Schulman, Brenda A
- ORCID
- Venue
- eLife
- Publisher
- eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
- Published
- 2013-08-08
- Volume
- 2
- Pages
- e00828-e00828
- ISSN
- 2050-084X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3738095
- OpenAlex
- W2037607907
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 4
- FWCI
- 7.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) (submittedVersion)
- Scholarly Commons (University of the Pacific) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- UNC Libraries
- Funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (045102)
- National Institutes of Health (R01GM069530, 5P30CA021765, R01GM073960, 5P41RR015301-10, 8P41 GM103403-10, 5R01 GM058202)
- ALSAC
- DOE (DE-AC02-06CH11357)
- American Heart Association
- U.S. Department of Energy (DE-AC02-06CH11357)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Ubiquitin and proteasome pathways
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Structural Biology › Enzyme Structure and Function
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Protein Degradation and Inhibitors
- Keywords
- HECT E3 ubiquitin ligase, ubiquitination, HECT domain, thioester bond, substrate-binding domain, protein degradation, protein structure
- MeSH terms
- Amino Acid Sequence, Lysine, Molecular Sequence Data, Protein Conformation, Mutagenesis, Sequence Homology, Amino Acid, Catalytic Domain, Ubiquitin, Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases
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