Endocrine Abstracts

Ubiquitin (Ub) plays a critical role in many fundamental processes like cell cycle, apoptosis, DNA repair or endocytosis. In these processes Ub acts as a signalling component able to trigger molecular events in cells. Ub does so by operating as a reversible and highly versatile regulatory signal for an expanding number of Ub-binding domains (UBD) present in cellular proteins that convey Ub signals into appropriate cellular phenotypes. In addition, it is becoming apparent that deregulation of Ub pathways results in the development of human diseases including many types of tumours. The identification and structural characterization of novel Ub binding domains (UBZ and Pru domains), and their functional involvement in the regulation of NFκB pathway and proteasomal functions will be presented.