The deubiquitylating enzyme, Cops6, regulates different developmental processes during early zebrafish embryogenesis

Zebrafish cops6 encodes a putative deubiquitylating enzyme (DUB) that belongs to the JAMM family. It consists of 297 amino acids and includes the Mov34/MPN/PAD-1 (PF01398) domain. Ubiquitylation is involved in many cellular processes and deconjugation of ubiquitinmodified substrates is important to maintain a sufficient amount of free ubiquitin in the cell. Here, we report our findings regarding the general function of the cops6 gene, as a continuation of our previous studies involving DUB knockdown screening. We have found that cops6 plays different roles in early embryonic development in the zebrafish, including dorsoventral patterning, convergent extension movement and brain formation. In addition, our findings indicate that cops6 plays an anti-apoptotic role during segmentation. Overall, the present study that consolidates our previous work on zebrafish DUB genes, corroborates the hypothesis of multi-functional roles for DUB genes during development.