Structure determination of helical domain of DNA damage-inducible protein 2

Human Ddi2 and his homologues are scarcely explored family of ubiquitin- like/ubiquitin-associated domain proteins (UBL/UBA proteins), containing domain which is structurally related to dimeric aspartyl proteases from retroviruses. The most studied of this family is Ddi1 protein from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which functions within the ubiquitin- proteasome system. This key cellular system exploits tightly regulated enzymatic apparatus for highly selective posttranslational modifications of proteins with molecules of ubiquitin, which serves as intracellular signal determining the proteins fate, importantly its degradation in many cases. Ddi1 plays a role of proteasome adaptor within this context, helping the recognition of ubiquitylated proteins by the proteasome. Even though the function as a proteasome receptor is possible for human Ddi2 protein as well, its cellular role might have been altered during the evolution. One of the important steps in decoding its purpose in cell is exploration of function of its individual domains. This work focuses on structural study of neighbouring region of this protease domain, where the helix-rich region called HDD domain is located. This region of Ddi2 was cloned, expressed and subjected to the NMR measurements. Structural information based on the NMR data was..