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Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Setting a Successful Sorting for Extracellular Vesicle Isolation
Published on: October 11, 2024
Ubiquitin-like 3 as a new protein-sorting factor for small extracellular vesicles
Yusuke Takanashi1,2, Tomoaki Kahyo1, Sae Kamamoto1
1Department of Cellular and Molecular Anatomy, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine.
Abstract:
Ubiquitin-like 3 (UBL3) is a well-conserved ubiquitin-like protein (UBL) in eukaryotes and regulates the ubiquitin cascade, but the significant roles of UBL3 in cellular processes remained unknown. Recently, UBL3 was elucidated to be a post-translational modification factor that promotes protein sorting to small extracellular vesicles (sEVs). Proteins sorted into sEVs have been studied as etiologies of sEV-related diseases. Also, there have been attempts to construct drug delivery systems (DDSs) by loading proteins into sEVs. In this review, we introduce the new concept that UBL3 has a critical role in the protein-sorting system and compare structure conservation between UBL3 and other UBLs from an evolutionary perspective. We conclude with future perspectives for the utility of UBL3 in sEV-related diseases and DDS.Key words: UBL3, small extracellular vesicles, protein sorting, ubiquitin-like protein, post-translational modification.
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