Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18a, D-82152 Martinsried, Germany.
The OLE pathway of yeast regulates the abundance of the ER-bound enzyme Delta-9 fatty acid desaturase OLE1, thereby controlling unsaturated fatty acid pools and membrane fluidity. Previously, we showed that this pathway is exquisitely regulated by the ubiquitin/proteasome system. Activation of the pathway involves proteasomal processing of a membrane-bound transcription factor and the subsequent mobilization of the cleaved, ubiquitylated transcription factor from its partner molecule by CDC48(UFD1/NPL4), a ubiquitin-selective chaperone-like enzyme. Here we report that the OLE1 protein itself is naturally short-lived and is degraded by ubiquitin/proteasome-dependent ER-associated degradation (ERAD). We found that CDC48(UFD1/NPL4) plays a second role in the OLE pathway by mediating ERAD of OLE1. Intriguingly, other ERAD substrates also require CDC48(UFD1/NPL4) for degradation, indicating that this enzyme is a novel, constitutive component of the ERAD machinery. We propose that CDC48(UFD1/NPL4) functions as a segregase that liberates ubiquitylated proteins from non-modified partners.