title: Intracellular protein degradation in mammalian cells: recent developments.
abstract: In higher organisms, dietary proteins are broken down into amino acids within the digestive tract but outside the cells, which incorporate the resulting amino acids into their metabolism. However, under certain conditions, an organism loses more nitrogen than is assimilated in the diet. This additional loss was found in the past century to come from intracellular proteins and started an intensive research that produced an enormous expansion of the field and a dispersed literature. Therefore, our purpose is to provide an updated summary of the current knowledge on the proteolytic machinery involved in intracellular protein degradation and its physiological and pathological relevance, especially addressed to newcomers in the field who may find further details in more specialized reviews. However, even providing a general overview, this is an extremely wide field and, therefore, we mainly focus on mammalian cells, while other cells will be mentioned only for comparison purposes.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe, Valencia, Spain. knecht@cipf.es
authors.forename: Erwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Knecht
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Aguado
authors.forename: Jaime
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cárcel
authors.forename: Inmaculada
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Esteban
authors.forename: Juan Miguel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Esteve
authors.forename: Ghita
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ghislat
authors.forename: José Félix
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Moruno
authors.forename: José Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Vidal
authors.forename: Rosana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sáez
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008247:Lysosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D010588:Phagosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D046988:Proteasome Endopeptidase Complex / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D011506:Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D025801:Ubiquitin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D011506:Proteins; D025801:Ubiquitin; D046988:Proteasome Endopeptidase Complex