Disease-specific accumulation of mutant ubiquitin as a marker for proteasomal dysfunction in the brain

Molecular misreading of the ubiquitin-B (UBB) gene results in a dinucleotide deletion in UBB mRNA. The resulting mutant protein, UBB ⁺¹, accumulates in the neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer disease. In vitro, UBB⁺¹ inhibits proteasomal proteolysis, although it is also an ubiquitin fusion degradation substrate for the proteasome. Using the ligase chain reaction to detect dinucleotide deletions, we report here that UBB+ 1 transcripts are present in each neurodegenerative disease studied (tauo- and synucleinopathies) and even in control brain samples. In contrast to UBB⁺¹ transcripts, UBB⁺¹ protein accumulation in the ubiquitin-containing neuropathological hallmarks is restricted to the tauopathies such as Pick disease, frontotemporal dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, and argyrophilic grain disease. Remarkably, UBB ⁺¹ protein is not detected in the major forms of synucleinopathies (Lewy body disease and multiple system atrophy). The neurologically intact brain can cope with UBB⁺¹ as lentivirally delivered UBB⁺¹ protein is rapidly degraded in rat hippocampus, whereas the K29,48R mutant of UBB⁺¹, which is not ubiquitinated, is abundantly expressed. The finding that UBB⁺¹ protein only accumulates in tauopathies thus implies that the ubiquitin-proteasome system is impaired specifically in this group of neurodegenerative diseases and not in synucleinopathies and that the presence of UBB⁺¹ protein reports proteasomal dysfunction in the brain.