The molecular chaperone heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is required for the activity and stability of its client proteins. Pharmacologic inhibition of HSP90 leads to the ubiquitin-mediated degradation of clients, particularly activated or mutant oncogenic protein kinases. Client ubiquitination occurs via the action of one or more E3 ubiquitin ligases. We sought to identify the role of Cullin-RING family E3 ubiquitin ligases in the cellular response to HSP90 inhibition. Through a focused siRNA screen of 28 Cullin-RING ligase family members, we found that CUL5 and RBX2 were required for degradation of several HSP90 clients upon treatment of human cancer cells with the clinical HSP90 inhibitor 17-AAG. Surprisingly, silencing Cullin-5 (CUL5) also delayed the earlier loss of HSP90 client protein activity at the same time as delaying cochaperone dissociation from inhibited HSP90-client complexes. Expression of a dominant-negative CUL5 showed that NEDD8 conjugation of CUL5 is required for client degradation but not for loss of client activity or recruitment of clients and HSP90 to CUL5. Silencing CUL5 reduced cellular sensitivity to three distinct HSP90 inhibitors, across four cancer types driven by different protein kinases. Our results reveal the importance of CUL5 in multiple aspects of the cellular response to HSP90 inhibition.eat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is a molecular chaperone that facilitates the stabilization and activation of around 350 client proteins (see www.picard.ch/downloads/Hsp90interactors. pdf for an updated client protein list) (1). As well as being involved in a wide range of normal cellular processes, many HSP90 clients are oncogenic kinases that are hyperactivated by mutation or amplified/overexpressed in malignancies (2, 3). HSP90-mediated activation and stabilization of client proteins requires an ATP-driven chaperone cycle regulated by a number of cochaperones (4, 5). Pharmacologic inhibition of HSP90 disrupts this cycle and leads to the ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation of client proteins (3, 6, 7).The proposed model is that clients are ubiquitinated and thus targeted to the proteasome by the action of one or more E3 ubiquitin ligases (8). Some evidence suggests that the U boxcontaining ligase CHIP is involved in the degradation of certain HSP90 clients (9, 10). However, the stability of protein kinase clients such as ERBB2 is not increased in CHIP −/− cells treated with the first-in-class pharmacologic HSP90 inhibitor 17-allylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin [17-AAG, tanespimycin (11)] (10), suggesting that other E3 ubiquitin ligases are also involved.One study showed that the Cullin-RING ligase Cullin-5 (CUL5) is recruited to HSP90-containing complexes and is involved in the ubiquitination and degradation of the client ERBB2 following HSP90 inhibition (12). Cullin-RING ligases function as modular, multisubunit complexes that consist of a Cullin scaffold, a RING-H2 finger protein, a substrate-recognition subunit, and, in most cases, an adaptor that links the Cullin to the substrate reco...