Emerging role of SUMO in pancreatic beta-cells.

Post-translational attachment of small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO), defined as SUMOylation, can affect the localization, interactions, stability and/or activity of substrate proteins, and thus can participate in a large variety of cellular processes. Most SUMO substrates are involved in transcriptional regulation. Hence, SUMOylation can either activate or, more commonly, repress gene transcription. The modulation of gene expression by SUMO through diverse mechanisms and specifically the recent findings concerning SUMOylation in pancreatic beta-cells are reviewed.