Dr. Hsueh-Chi Yen discover the mechanism of protein quality control

Proteome fidelity is of critical importance in almost all cellular processes, yet it is constantly challenged by a diversity of protein aberrations arising from genetic mutations, erroneous transcription and translation, improper folding, and damage induced by various environmental stresses. Selenocysteine (Sec) is the 21st amino acid in protein synthesis and translated by the UGA codon. However, the UGA codon is recognized as termination signal and translated mRNA into truncated protein in the deficiency of selenium. How can such a side spectrum of defective proteins be captured? Our study addresses these long-standing fundamental questions, which have a broad impact on biology. Our findings reveal that CRL2 ubiquitin ligase-mediated protein quality-control system which specifically eliminates truncated proteins.