Chemical tools for E3 ubiquitin ligase study

E3 ubiquitin ligases catalyze the final step of ubiquitylation, a crucial post-translational modification in-volved in almost every process in eukaryotic cells. E3 ubiquitin ligases are key regulators of cellular events, and the investigation into their functions and functioning mechanisms are research areas with great importance. Synthetic or semi-synthetic tools have greatly facilitated the research about the en-zyme activity, distribution in different physiological events, and catalytic mechanism of E3 ubiquitin lig-ase. In this review, we summarize the development of chemical tools for E3 ubiquitin ligases with an emphasis on the synthetic routes. We show the utility of these chemical tools by briefly discussing their applications in biological research.(c) 2023 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.