The ubiquitin -like protein SUMO is conjugated covalently to hundreds of target proteins in organisms throughout the eukaryotic domain. Genetic and biochemical studies using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster are beginning to reveal many essential functions for SUMO in cell biology and development. For example, SUMO regulates multiple signaling pathways such as the Ras/MAPK, Dpp, and JNK pathways. In addition, SUMO regulates transcription through conjugation to many transcriptional regulatory proteins, including Bicoid, Spalt , Scm, and Groucho. In some cases, conjugation of SUMO to a target protein inhibits its normal activity, while in other cases SUMO conjugation stimulates target protein activity. SUMO often modulates a biological process by altering the subcellular localization of a target protein. The ability of SUMO and other ubiquitin-like proteins to diversify protein function may be critical to the evolution of developmental complexity.
Keywords: Bicoid; Dpp; Drosophila development; Groucho; Medea; Ras/MAPK signaling; SUMO; Scm; Spalt; Ubc9; Ubiquitin-like proteins.