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Introduction to Sumoylation

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Abstract

Reversible post-translational modification is a rapid and efficient system to control the activity of pre-existing proteins. Modifiers range from small chemical moieties, such as phosphate groups, to proteins themselves as the modifier. The patriarch of the protein modifiers is ubiquitin which plays a central role in protein degradation and protein targeting. Over the last 10 years, the ubiquitin family has expanded to include a variety of ubiquitin-related small modifier proteins that are all covalently attached to a lysine residue on target proteins via series of enzymatic reactions. Of these newly discovered ubiquitin-like proteins, the SUMO family has gained prominence as a major regulatory component that impacts numerous aspects of cell growth and differentiation. Unlike ubiquitinylation which often leads to protein turn over, sumoylation performs a variety of functions such as altering protein stability, protein trafficking, protein-protein interaction, and protein activity. This chapter will introduce the basic properties of SUMO proteins and the general tenets of sumoylation.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank other current and former members of the Wilson lab for discussions that helped form much of the work presented here.

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  1. Department of Microbial and Molecular Pathogenesis, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center, 77845-1113, College Station, TX, USA

    Van G. Wilson

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    Van G. Wilson

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Wilson, V.G. (2009). Introduction to Sumoylation. In: Wilson, V. (eds) SUMO Regulation of Cellular Processes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2649-1_1

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