MARCH6 and TRC8 facilitate the quality control of cytosolic and tail‐anchored proteins

Misfolded or damaged proteins are typically targeted for destruction by proteasome‐mediated degradation, but the mammalian ubiquitin machinery involved is incompletely understood. Here, using forward genetic screens in human cells, we find that the proteasome‐mediated degradation of the soluble misfolded reporter, mCherry‐CL1, involves two ER‐resident E3 ligases, MARCH6 and TRC8. mCherry‐CL1 degradation is routed via the ER membrane and dependent on the hydrophobicity of the substrate, with complete stabilisation only observed in double knockout MARCH6/TRC8 cells. To identify a more physiological correlate, we used quantitative mass spectrometry and found that TRC8 and MARCH6 depletion altered the turnover of the tail‐anchored protein heme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1). These E3 ligases associate with the intramembrane cleaving signal peptide peptidase (SPP) and facilitate the degradation of HO‐1 following intramembrane proteolysis. Our results highlight how ER‐resident ligases may target the same substrates, but work independently of each other, to optimise the protein quality control of selected soluble and tail‐anchored proteins.