Summary
Small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) is an ubiquitin-like protein that is covalently attached to a variety of target proteins. Unlike ubiquitination, sumoylation does not target proteins for proteolytic breakdown, but is involved in regulation of protein function, nuclear targeting, and the formation of subcellular structures. Because SUMO is involved in such a plethora of functions and modifies numerous proteins it is important to identify proteins that are sumoylated in order to increase our understanding of how this modification affects protein function and localization. This overview describes techniques utilized for the detection of sumoylated proteins. The techniques covered include immunoprecipitation, an in vitro sumoylation assay, and gel shift mobility assays that have been used to identify SUMO-modified proteins.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful to Mike Matunis (Johns Hopkins) for many reagents and advice on the in vitro sumoylation assay, to Chris Lima (Weill Medical College of Cornell University) for his generous gift of constructs encoding recombinant E1 heterodimers, and to the Journal of Biological Chemistry for allowing us to reprint figures from two of our papers (11,13). This work was supported by NIH grants GM61053 and GM64606 to K.D.S.
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Hilgarth, R.S., Sarge, K.D. (2005). Detection of Sumoylated Proteins. In: Patterson, C., Cyr, D.M. (eds) Ubiquitin-Proteasome Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 301. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-895-1:329
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-895-1:329
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