The Ubiquitin System and Protein Quality Control

​The ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) is the major regulatory pathway that maintains the homeostasis of the cellular proteome. It controls the stability, sub-cellular location and activation of virtually all cellular proteins. Dysfunction of the UPS can lead to the inappropriate accumulation of substrates, perturbation in the balance of the proteome and cellular stress and is implicated in a wide swath of human diseases from cancer to neurodegeneration. Thus, understanding how the UPS system coordinates protein quality control may identify strategies for therapeutic intervention in many human diseases.

Our group is interested in understanding the mechanisms that regulate protein quality control. We are particularly interested in how proteins once ubiquitinated are further processed for degradation. We employ a range of cell biological, biochemical and proteomic tools to understand how the UPS is dynamically organized. Read more about our on-going projects here