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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Detection of Protein Ubiquitination
Published on: August 19, 2009
Structural basis for the function of DCN-1 in protein Neddylation
Xiaoyu Yang1, Jie Zhou, Lei Sun
1National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Abstract:
Covalent modification by Nedd8 (neddylation) stimulates the ubiquitin-protein isopeptide ligase (E3) activities of Cullins. DCN-1, an evolutionarily conserved protein, promotes neddylation of Cullins in vivo, binds directly to Nedd8, and associates with Cdc53 in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The 1.9A resolution structure of yeast DCN-1 shows that the region encompassing residues 66-269 has a rectangular parallelepiped-like all alpha-helical structures, consisting of an EF-hand motif N-terminal domain and a closely juxtaposed C-terminal domain with six alpha-helices. The EF-hand motif structure is highly similar to that of the c-Cbl ubiquitin E3 ligase. We also demonstrate that DCN-1 directly binds to Rbx-1, a factor important for protein neddylation. The structural and biochemical results are consistent with the role of DCN-1 as a scaffold protein in a multisubunit neddylation E3 ligase complex.
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