Distribution and interrelationship of ubiquitin proteasome pathway component activities and ubiquitin pools in various porcine tissues.

The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway fulfills major biological functions, but its physiologic tissue distribution and the interrelationship between pathway component activities and ubiquitin pools are unknown. Therefore, we analyzed free and conjugated ubiquitin, ubiquitin-protein ligation rates (UbPL) and chymotryptic- and tryptic-like proteasome peptidase activities in porcine skeletal muscle, heart, lung, liver, spleen and kidney (n=5 each). There were considerable differences between tissues (p<0.05 for all parameters). Lung and spleen showed high levels of free and conjugated ubiquitin and high UbPL. Proteasome activities were highest in kidney and heart. There were linear relationships between tryptic-like and chymotryptic-like proteasome peptidase activities (r(2) = 0.624, p<0.001) and between free and conjugated ubiquitin tissue levels (r(2) = 0.623, p<0.001). Tissue levels of free and conjugated ubiquitin correlated linear with UbPL (p<0.005), but they were not correlated with proteasome peptidase activities. The results suggest that tissue ubiquitin pools are tightly regulated and indicate a constant proportion of conjugated ubiquitin. They further support the hypothesis that ubiquitin-protein ligase systems, and probably deubiquitylating enzymes, are key regulators of ubiquitin homeostasis. The detected differences are suggestive of tissue-specific roles of ubiquitin-proteasome pathway components. Besides the known importance of the ubiquitin proteasome pathway in heart, kidney and the immune system, the results suggest the lung as another organ in which ubiquitin proteasome pathway components may also significantly contribute to disease processes.