What are the Main Pathways of Protein Degradation?
Protein degradation occurs primarily through two major pathways:
Ubiquitin-Proteasome System (UPS): This pathway involves tagging proteins with ubiquitin, a small regulatory protein, which directs them to the proteasome for degradation. The proteasome is a large protein complex that breaks down the tagged proteins into peptides. Autophagy-Lysosome Pathway: In this pathway, proteins and organelles are sequestered into autophagosomes, which then fuse with lysosomes. Lysosomes contain hydrolytic enzymes that degrade the sequestered material into basic components.
