Proteomics analysis identifies new components of the fission and budding yeast anaphase-promoting complexes

The anaphase-promoting complex (APC) is a conserved multisubunit ubiquitin ligase required for the degradation of key cell cycle regulators. Components of the APC have been identified through genetic screens in both Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as through biochemical purification coupled with mass spectrometric protein identification. With these approaches, 11 subunits of the core S. cerevisiae APC have been identified. Here, we have applied a tandem affinity purification approach coupled with direct analysis of the purified complexes by mass spectrometry (DALPC) to reveal additional subunits of both the S. pombe and S. cerevisiae APCs. Our data increase the total number of identified APC subunits to 13 in both yeasts and indicate that previous approaches were biased against the identification of small subunits. These results underscore the power of direct analysis of protein complexes by mass spectrometry and set the foundation for further functional and structural studies of the APC.