The PUB domain: a putative protein-protein interaction domain implicated in the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway.

Cytoplasmic peptide:N-glycanase (PNGase) is a de-N-glycosylating enzyme which may be involved in the proteasome-dependent pathway for degradation of misfolded glycoproteins formed in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) that are exported into the cytoplasm. A cytoplasmic PNGase found in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Png1p, is widely distributed in higher eukaryotes as well as in yeast (Suzuki, T., et al. J. Cell Biol. 149, 1039-1051, 2000). The recently uncovered complete genome sequence of Arabidopsis thaliana prompted us to search for the protein homologue of Png1p in this organism. Interestingly, when the mouse Png1p homologue sequence was used as a query, not only a Png1p homologue containing a transglutaminase-like domain that is believed to contain a catalytic triad for PNGase activity, but also four proteins which had a domain of 46 amino acids in length that exhibited significant similarity to the N-terminus of mouse Png1p were identified. Moreover, three of these homologous proteins were also found to possess a UBA or UBX domain, which are found in various proteins involved in the ubiquitin-related pathway. We name this newly found homologous region the PUB (Peptide:N-glycanase/UBA or UBX-containing proteins) domain and propose that this domain may mediate protein-protein interactions.

Studies on the function of yeast protein disulfide isomerase in renaturation of proteins.

Renaturation of two enzymes lacking disulfide bonds, citrate synthase (CS), and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and another protein containing disulfide bonds, lysozyme (LZM), were studied in order to dissect the possible chaperone function from the isomerase function of yeast protein disulfide isomerase (PDI). Our findings suggest no independent chaperone activity of yeast PDI with respect to the two enzymes lacking disulfide bonds, GAPDH and CS, since neither of these enzymes required PDI for renaturation. In contrast, a high level of renaturation of LZM was observed in the presence of PDI. Renaturation of LZM involved formation and rearrangement of disulfide bonds. Additional studies using LZM as a substrate were done to examine the role of cysteine residues in the two active sites of PDI. Studies with a series of cysteine to serine mutants and truncation mutants of yeast PDI revealed that the two active sites of PDI were not equal in activity. An intramolecular disulfide bond in at least one active site of PDI was required for the oxidation of reduced LZM. The first cysteine in each active site was necessary for disulfide bond rearrangement, i.e., isomerization, in LZM, while the second cysteine was not.