Ubiquitin B
Encyclopedia
Ubiquitin is a 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...

 that in humans is encoded by the UBB 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...

.

Function

Ubiquitin, one of the most conserved proteins known. Ubiquitin is required for ATP
Adenosine triphosphate
Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleoside triphosphate used in cells as a coenzyme. It is often called the "molecular unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer. ATP transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism...

-dependent, non-lysosomal
Lysosome
thumb|350px|Schematic of typical animal cell, showing subcellular components. [[Organelle]]s: [[nucleoli]] [[cell nucleus|nucleus]] [[ribosomes]] [[vesicle |vesicle]] rough [[endoplasmic reticulum]]...

 intracellular protein degradation of abnormal proteins and normal proteins with a rapid turnover. Ubiquitin is covalently bound to proteins to be degraded, and presumably labels these proteins for degradation. Ubiquitin also binds to histone H2A
Histone H2A
Histone H2A is one of the 5 main histone proteins involved in the structure of chromatin in eukaryotic cells. Featuring a main globular domain and a long N terminal tail, H2A is involved with the structure of the nucleosomes of the 'beads on a string' structure.Other histone proteins...

 in actively transcribed regions but does not cause histone H2A degradation, suggesting that ubiquitin is also involved in regulation of gene expression. This gene consists of three direct repeats of the ubiquitin coding sequence with no spacer sequence. Consequently, the protein is expressed as a polyubiquitin precursor with a final amino acid after the last repeat. Aberrant form of this protein (UBB+1
UBB+1
UBB+1 is shorthand for Ubiquitin-B+1, a frameshifted mutant arising from the Ubiquitin B gene. UBB+1 is thought to arise from molecular misreading, a poorly understood process. Molecular misreading introduces dinucleotide deletions into mRNA transcripts. These deletions are not present in...

) has been noticed in patients with Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

, Down syndrome
Down syndrome
Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...

, other tauopathies
Tauopathy
Tauopathies are a class of neurodegenerative diseases associated with the pathological aggregation of tau protein in the human brain.The best known of these illnesses is Alzheimer's disease , where tau protein is deposited within neurons in the form of neurofibrillary tangles...

 (e.g. Pick's disease
Pick's disease
Pick's disease, is a rare neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive destruction of nerve cells in the brain. Symptoms include loss of speech , and dementia. While some of the symptoms can initially be alleviated, the disease progresses and patients often die within two to ten years...

) and polyglutamine disease (e.g. Huntington's disease
Huntington's disease
Huntington's disease, chorea, or disorder , is a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to cognitive decline and dementia. It typically becomes noticeable in middle age. HD is the most common genetic cause of abnormal involuntary writhing movements called chorea...

).
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