Aup1 - ancient ubiquitous protein 1

The protein encoded by this gene contains several conserved domains including a hydrophobic domain, an acetyltransferase domain, a ubiquitin binding domain, and a domain required for recruitment of ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 G2 (Ube2g2). In humans, this protein localizes to the endoplasmic reticulum and to lipid droplets. This protein is thought to be involved both in the degradation of misfolded proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum and in the storage of neutral lipids. Reduced expression of the human ortholog of this gene strongly reduces lipid droplet clustering in the cell, and causes stabilization of misfolded proteins. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants. [provided by RefSeq, Aug 2014]