Ubiquitin Specific Peptidase 11 (USP11)

Protein ubiquitination controls many intracellular processes, including cell cycle progression, transcriptional activation, and signal transduction. This dynamic process, involving ubiquitin conjugating enzymes and deubiquitinating enzymes, adds and removes ubiquitin. Deubiquitinating enzymes are cysteine proteases that specifically cleave ubiquitin from ubiquitin-conjugated protein substrates.

USP11 encodes a deubiquitinating enzyme which lies in a gene cluster on chromosome Xp11.23^. The cDNA encodes a protein of 690 amino acids and has strong homology to the proteins encoded by a variety of ubiquitin hydrolases (p values ranging between 2.4e-265 and 1.4e-13).