Ubiquitin
Welcome to the website of the Trujillo laboratory at the University of Freiburg. We are a research group interested in ubiquitination, a key post-translational modification involved in most cellular processes.
Plants are able to sense environmental cues and respond to them rapidly in order to efficiently acclimate. Responses to challenges occur at multiple levels, and coordinated proteolysis is paramount to allow plants to reshape the proteome. The modification of proteins by the attachment of ubiquitin, termed ubiquitination, is an essential process involved in most cellular processes. Best known for its function in the degradation of proteins via the 26S proteasome, it also contributes to the coordination of intracellular transport and vacuolar degradation via endocytic and autophagic pathways.
The molecular machinery that mediates ubiquitination offers great possibilities for the improvement of crop plants. It is of particular importance to widen our understanding of the ubiquitination process by identifying the proteins targetted by this machinery. The value of the world's agriculture is more than three times that of the entire pharmaceutical industry and many more people die each year of hunger and malnutrition than from cancer. In the face of climate change and a growing world population, it is imperative to to gain insight into how plants cope with stresses, in order to guarantee food supply and develop environmetally friendly agricultural practices.