Lysine-free ubiquitin (K0-Ub) is commonly used to study the ubiquitin-signaling
pathway, where it is assumed to have the same structure and function as
wild-type ubiquitin (wt-Ub). However, the K0-Ub (15) N heteronuclear single
quantum correlation NMR spectrum differs significantly from wt-Ub and the
melting temperature is depressed by 19°C, raising the question of the
structural integrity and equivalence to wt-Ub. The three-dimensional structure
of K0-Ub was determined by solution NMR, using chemical shift and residual
dipolar coupling data. K0-Ub adopts the same backbone structure as wt-Ub, and
all significant chemical shifts can be related to interactions impacted by the K
to R mutations.