Slipping up: partial substrate degradation by ATP-dependent proteases

ATP-dependent proteases are present in all organisms, where they are responsible for much of intracellular protein degradation. Most proteins are processively unfolded and degraded into small peptides; however, in a few so-called slippery substrates, the protease stalls at a folded domain and releases a large protein fragment. In this review, we describe the properties of physiological slippery substrates that are processed in this manner by ATP-dependent proteases and the recent advances that have been made in understanding the mechanism underlying their partial degradation.