Emerging Roles of Tripartite Motif-Containing Family Proteins (TRIMs) in Eliminating Misfolded Proteins

Litian Zhang; Lukman O Afolabi; Xiaochun Wan; Yang Li; Liang Chen

doi:10.3389/fcell.2020.00802

Emerging Roles of Tripartite Motif-Containing Family Proteins (TRIMs) in Eliminating Misfolded Proteins

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2020 Aug 25:8:802. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2020.00802. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Litian Zhang^{1

2}, Lukman O Afolabi^{1

3}, Xiaochun Wan^{1

3}, Yang Li¹, Liang Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ Shenzhen Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology, Center for Antibody Drug Development, Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
² Department of Hematology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
³ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Protein quality control (PQC) is pivotal for eukaryotic cells to eliminate misfolded proteins and maintain cellular homeostasis. A decreased or increased capacity of PQC is associated with various diseases, e.g., neurodegenerative diseases and cancers. Recently, increasing evidences have suggested that tripartite motif-containing family proteins (TRIMs) are the key players in PQC regulation. Most TRIMs are E3 ubiquitin ligases, such as TRIM11/19/25, which, through the ubiquitination modifications, can contribute to effectively remove the cellular misfolded proteins or protein aggregates via the UPS pathway. In this review, we summarized the participation of TRIM members in misfolded protein elimination through distinct pathways, including the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), autophagy system, and ER-associated degradation (ERAD).

Keywords: ERAD; TRIMs; UPS; aggregates; autophagy; degradation; misfolded proteins.

Publication types

Review