Ubiquitination is a post-translational modification (PTM) that is essential for balancing numerous physiological processes. To enable delineation of protein ubiquitination at a site-specific level, we generated an antibody, denoted UbiSite, recognizing the C-terminal 13 amino acids of ubiquitin, which remain attached to modified peptides after proteolytic digestion with the endoproteinase LysC. Notably, UbiSite is specific to ubiquitin. Furthermore, besides ubiquitination on lysine residues, protein N-terminal ubiquitination is readily detected as well. By combining UbiSite enrichment with sequential LysC and trypsin digestion and high-accuracy MS, we identified over 63,000 unique ubiquitination sites on 9,200 proteins in two human cell lines. In addition to uncovering widespread involvement of this PTM in all cellular aspects, the analyses reveal an inverse association between protein N-terminal ubiquitination and acetylation, as well as a complete lack of correlation between changes in protein abundance and alterations in ubiquitination sites upon proteasome inhibition.

Modulation of protein activities by reversible post-translational modifications (PTMs) is a major molecular mechanism involved in the control of virtually all cellular processes. One of these PTMs is ubiquitination, which regulates key processes including protein degradation, cell cycle, DNA damage repair, and signal transduction. Because of its importance for numerous cellular functions, ubiquitination has become an intense topic of research in recent years, and proteomics tools have greatly facilitated the identification of many ubiquitination targets. Taking advantage of the StUbEx strategy for exchanging the endogenous ubiquitin with an epitope-tagged version, we created a modified system, StUbEx PLUS, which allows precise mapping of ubiquitination sites by mass spectrometry. Application of StUbEx PLUS to U2OS cells treated with proteasomal inhibitors resulted in the identification of 41 589 sites on 7762 proteins, which thereby revealed the ubiquitous nature of this PTM and demonstrated the utility of the approach for comprehensive ubiquitination studies at site-specific resolution.