Previously we reported that proteasome inhibitors were able to overcome Bcl-2-mediated protection from apoptosis. Here we show that inhibition of the proteasome activity in Bcl-2-overexpressing cells accumulates the proapoptotic Bax protein to mitochondria/cytoplasm, where it interacts to Bcl-2 protein. This event was followed by release of mitochondrial cytochrome c into the cytosol and activa...

Regulated protein destruction by the proteasome is crucial for the maintenance of normal cellular homeostasis. Much of our understanding of proteasome function stems from the use of drugs that inhibit its activity. Curiously, despite the importance of proteasomal proteolysis, previous studies have found that proliferation of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is relatively resistant to the effe...

Accumulating evidence has implicated the proteasome in the processing of protein along the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I presentation pathway. The availability of potent proteasome inhibitors provides an opportunity to examine the role of proteasome function in antigen presentation by MHC class I molecules to CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). We have investigated the process...

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha (HIF-1α), which transactivates a variety of hypoxia-induced genes, is rapidly degraded under nomoxia through the hydroxylation-ubiquitination-proteasome pathway. In this study, we addressed how HIF-1α is stabilized by proteasome inhibitors. The ubiquitin pool was rapidly reduced after proteasome inhibition, followed by the accumulation of non-ubiquitinated HIF-1α...

AIMS The proteasome is the proteolytically active core of the ubiquitin-proteasome system, which regulates vital processes and which can cause various diseases when it malfunctions. Therefore, the proteasome has become an attractive target for pharmaceutical interventions. Inhibition of the cardiac proteasome by specific proteasome inhibitors has been shown to attenuate cardiac hypertrophy and ...

ARF, NPM and FOXM1 proteins interact with each other in mammalian cells. We showed previously that proteasome inhibitors suppress not only FOXM1 expression, but also the expression of ARF and NPM proteins. Using RNA interference we found that the depletion of each of these proteins by RNAi in human cancer HeLa cells leads to down-regulation of the two other partners, suggesting that these prote...

ubiquitin, and then degraded by a proteasome in an ATP dependent manner1^ The catalytic core of the proteasome is the 20S proteasome. New20S proteasome inhibitors would contribute to further understanding of the system2~4\ In the course of our screening program, wehave isolated several classes of 20S proteasome inhibitors including (i) the novel cyclic peptides, TMC-95s, and (ii) the new member...