Structural Snapshots of 26S Proteasome Reveal Tetraubiquitin-Induced Conformations

The 26S proteasome is the ATP-dependent protease responsible for regulating the proteome of eukaryotic cells through degradation of mainly ubiquitin-tagged substrates. In order to understand how proteasome responds to ubiquitin signal, we resolved an ensemble of cryo-EM structures of proteasome in the presence of K48-Ub₄, with three of them resolved at near-atomic resolution. We identified a conformation with stabilized ubiquitin receptors and a previously unreported orientation of the lid, assigned as a Ub-accepted state C1-b. We determined another structure C3-b with localized K48-Ub₄ to the toroid region of Rpn1, assigned as a substrate-processing state. Our structures indicate that tetraUb induced conformational changes in proteasome could initiate substrate degradation. We also propose a CP gate-opening mechanism involving the propagation of the motion of the lid to the gate through the Rpn6-α2 interaction. Our results enabled us to put forward a model of a functional cycle for proteasomes induced by tetraUb and nucleotide.