Unique ubiquity

A University of Lausanne team has turned to the U.K.'s MRC Technology for help in developing a therapeutic from the team's 2013 finding that monoubiquitination can activate the protease MALT1 in diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The goal of the collaboration, announced last month, is to develop pharmacological inhibitors that target this active form of the enzyme.

Mucosa associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma translocation gene 1 (MALT1) activates lymphocyte proliferation and is frequently dysregulated in the cancer. While polyubiquitination controls MALT1's function as a scaffold protein, the Lausanne team showed that monoubiquitination controls its protease activity, which is important for growth and survival of DLBCL cells...