Specificity, location and function of βTrCP isoforms and their splice variants

SCF^βTrCP is the ubiquitin ligase for a wide variety of substrates and functions in many cellular processes. βTrCP, the substrate binding factor of the SCF complex, has two isoforms, produced from different genes, and several splice variants. Despite a certain level of redundancy, knock-out studies show different phenotypes indicating different preferential substrates for the two isoforms. However, until now functional differences between βTrCP1 and 2 were not studied at the endogenous protein level. We generated isoform-specific antibodies against βTrCP to characterise endogenous βTrCP isoforms and splice variants. We show that endogenous βTrCP1 and 2 localise to both nucleus and cytosol. Interestingly, we find that one splice variant of βTrCP2 localises exclusively to the nucleus and another only to the cytosol. In addition, we show that the substrate binding domain of βTrCP is the dominant localisation determinant.