Biosynthesis of long polyubiquitin chains in high yield and purity

As one of the most prevalent protein post-translational modifications, ubiquitin modification plays a momentous role in regulating varied cellular functions. Different polyubiquitin linkage types have diverse effects on cell signaling. However, compared with short ubiquitin chains, the preparation of long ubiquitin chains remains difficult and expensive to purchase commercially. In this study, we constructed an enzyme library of ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1, ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2, and ubiquitin-ligase E3, which are specific for synthesizing K63, K48, and M1 linked polyubiquitin chains. We demonstrate that these distinctly linked polyubiquitin chains could be synthesized and purified with high yield and purity. More importantly, this method can synthesize longer ubiquitin chains, the longest can reach more than fifteen ubiquitin molecules, which provides great convenience for ubiquitin-related structural and functional studies. The process of protein ubiquitination. [Display omitted] •In this study, an enzyme library of E1, E2 and E3 has been constructed to synthesis K63, K48 and M1 linked polyubiquitin chains.•The distinctly linked polyubiquitin synthesized by our method can reach more than fifteen ubiquitin molecules.•We demonstrate that these distinctly linked polyubiquitin have high purity and relatively high yield.