Subunit-subunit interactions in the human 26S proteasome

Ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis is mediated by the proteasome. To understand the structure and function of the human 26S proteasome, we cloned complete ORFs of 32 human proteasome subunits and conducted a yeast two-hybrid analysis of their interactions with each other. We observed that there are 114 interacting-pairs in the human 26S proteasome. About 10% (11/114) of these interacting-pairs was confirmed by the GST-pull down analysis. Among these observed interacting subunits, 58% (66/114) are novel and the rest 42% (48/114) has been reported previously in human or in other species. We observed new interactions between the 19S regulatory particle and the beta-rings of the 20S catalytic particle and therefore proposed a modified model of the 26S proteasome.