FASEB Summer Conference: Ubiquitin and Intracellular Protein Degradation to be held July 31- Aug. 5, 1999, in Saxton's River, VT.

“泛素和细胞内蛋白降解”会议将于1999年7月31日至8月5日在佛蒙特州萨克斯顿河的佛蒙特学院会议中心举行。该会议由美国实验生物学学会联合会（FASEB）主办。自1989年以来，它每两年举行一次。这是唯一一个定期举行的国际会议，专门讨论泛素的生物学和生物化学。该奖项为1999年会议提供部分资金。这种保守的蛋白泛素在真核生物中是必不可少的。泛素的生物学功能是通过其c端羧基与细胞蛋白赖氨酸残基的共价附着介导的。泛素最广为人知的功能是作为一种信号，使26S蛋白酶体对依赖atp的蛋白质进行降解。在这种新的蛋白水解途径中，底物的选择和底物水解的化学催化是由单独的酶进行的，使得不同的底物能够被高选择性和高效率地识别和降解。蛋白酶体是一组普遍分布的atp依赖性蛋白酶的典型例子，其特征是隔离的活性位点，并且需要将底物展开耦合到蛋白质水解。通过设置关键调节蛋白的水平，泛素-蛋白酶体降解途径控制基本的细胞内过程，包括细胞周期的进展。除了泛素，真核生物还拥有一个泛素样蛋白家族，其代谢过程与泛素相似，但又不同。这些分子似乎作为共价信号，将其底物靶向到细胞内的特定位置。1999年会议的报告和讨论将大大促进对泛素及其同源物功能的理解。

PickartThe conference "Ubiquitin and Intracellular Protein Degradation" will be held from July 31 through August 5, 1999, at the Conference Center of the Vermont Academy in Saxton's River, VT. This meeting is sponsored by the Federation of the American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). It has been held biennially since 1989. It is the only regularly-held international meeting devoted to the biology and biochemistry of ubiquitin. This award provides partial funding for the 1999 conference.The conserved protein ubiquitin is essential in eukaryotes. The biological functions of ubiquitin are mediated by its covalent attachment, through its C-terminal carboxyl group, to lysine residues of cellular proteins. The best-understood function of ubiquitin is that of a signal which targets proteins for ATP-dependent degradation by the 26S proteasome. In this novel proteolytic pathway, substrate selection and the chemical catalysis of substrate hydrolysis are carried out by separate enzymes, allowing diverse substrates to be recognized and degraded with high selectivity and efficiency. The proteasome is the paradigmatic example of a universally distributed set of ATP-dependent proteases which feature sequestered active sites and a necessity for the coupling of substrate unfolding to proteolysis. By setting the levels of key regulatory proteins, the ubiquitin--proteasome degradation pathway controls fundamental intracellular processes, including the progression of the cell cycle. Besides ubiquitin, eukaryotes possess a family of ubiquitin-like proteins which undergo a metabolism parallel to, but distinct from, that of ubiquitin. These molecules appear to function as covalent signals which target their substrates to specific locations within the cell. The presentations and discussions in the 1999 conference will substantially advance the understanding of the functions of ubiquitin and its homologs.