Science signaling podcast: 24 February 2015

This Podcast features an interview with Venuprasad Poojary, senior author of a Research Article that appears in the 24 February 2015 issue of Science Signaling, about the involvement of an E3 ubiquitin ligase in skin inflammation. Mice lacking the E3 ubiquitin ligases Itch have chronic skin inflammation and persistently scratch themselves. Theivanthiran et al. found that Itch ubiquitylates the adaptor Tab1, thus targeting it for degradation and preventing it from promoting activity of the kinase p38α. In Itch mice, increased p38α activity caused macrophages to produce more inflammatory cytokines, leading to skin inflammation and the itchy phenotype. Disrupting the interaction between Itch and Tab1 with a cellpermeable peptide reduced skin inflammation in Itch mice. Because pharmacological inhibition of p38α has not been clinically successful for treating inflammatory diseases, targeting the ItchTab1 interaction is a potential alternative for reducing p38α activity in this context.