Anaphase-promoting complex subunit 2 is an enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

 that in humans is encoded by the ANAPC2 gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

.

A large protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

 complex, termed the anaphase-promoting complex

Anaphase-promoting complex

Anaphase-Promoting Complex, also called cyclosome , is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that marks target cell cycle proteins for degradation by the 26S proteasome. The APC/C is a large complex of 11–13 subunit proteins, including a cullin and RING subunit much like SCF...

 (APC), or the cyclosome, promotes metaphase

Metaphase

Metaphase, from the ancient Greek μετά and φάσις , is a stage of mitosis in the eukaryotic cell cycle in which condensed & highly coiled chromosomes, carrying genetic information, align in the middle of the cell before being separated into each of the two daughter cells...

-anaphase transition by ubiquitinating its specific substrates such as mitotic cyclins and anaphase inhibitor, which are subsequently degraded by the 26S proteasome

Proteasome

Proteasomes are very large protein complexes inside all eukaryotes and archaea, and in some bacteria.  In eukaryotes, they are located in the nucleus and the cytoplasm.  The main function of the proteasome is to degrade unneeded or damaged proteins by proteolysis, a chemical reaction that breaks...

. Biochemical studies have shown that the vertebrate APC contains eight subunits. The composition of the APC is highly conserved in organisms from yeast to humans. The product of this gene is a component of the complex and shares sequence similarity with a recently identified family of proteins called cullin

Cullin

Cullins are a family of hydrophobic proteins providing a scaffold for ubiquitin ligases . All eukaryotes appear to have cullins. They combine with RING proteins to form Cullin-RING ubiquitin ligases that are highly diverse and play a role in a myriad of cellular processes.Human genome contains...

s, which may also be involved in ubiquitin

Ubiquitin

Ubiquitin is a small regulatory protein that has been found in almost all tissues of eukaryotic organisms. Among other functions, it directs protein recycling.Ubiquitin can be attached to proteins and label them for destruction...

-mediated degradation.

Interactions

ANAPC2 has been shown to interact

Protein-protein interaction

Protein–protein interactions occur when two or more proteins bind together, often to carry out their biological function. Many of the most important molecular processes in the cell such as DNA replication are carried out by large molecular machines that are built from a large number of protein...

 with ANAPC1

ANAPC1

Anaphase-promoting complex subunit 1 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ANAPC1 gene.ANAPC1 is one of at least ten subunits of the anaphase-promoting complex , which functions at the metaphase-to-anaphase transition of the cell cycle and is regulated by spindle checkpoint proteins...

 and ANAPC11

ANAPC11

Anaphase-promoting complex subunit 11 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ANAPC11 gene.-Interactions:ANAPC11 has been shown to interact with ANAPC2 and CDC27.-Further reading:...

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Further reading