The Robinson Group have published a new paper in Nature Communications.
Nick Robinson and colleagues have published a paper in Nature Communications entitled "Involvement of a eukaryotic-like ubiquitin-related modifier in the proteasome pathway of the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius". Small archaeal ubiquitin-like modifiers (SAMPs) have been hypothesised to be part of an ancestral version of the ubiquitin-proteasome system. In this work the group identify a SAMP homologous to the eukaryotic ubiquitin-related modifier-1 (Urm1) and show that it is processed by the 20S core proteasome in S. acidocaldarius. The regulation of protein stability by Urm1 and the proteasome in archaea is likely representative of an ancient pathway from which eukaryotic ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis has evolved.