Studying protein ubiquitylation in yeast

Abstract

Ubiquitylation is a reversible posttranslational modifi cation that is critical for most, if not all, cellular processes and essential for viability. Ubiquitin conjugates to substrate proteins either as a single moiety (monoubiquitylation) or as polymers composed of ubiquitin molecules linked to each other with various topologies and structures (polyubiquitylation). This contributes to an elaborate ubiquitin code that is decrypted by specifi c ubiquitin-binding proteins. Indeed, these different types of ubiquitylation have different functional outcomes, notably affecting the stability of the substrate, its interactions, its activity, or its subcellular localization. In this chapter, we describe protocols to determine whether a protein is ubiquitylated, to identify the site that is ubiquitylated, and provide direction to study the topology of the ubiquitin modifi cation, in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.