Rose was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a secular Jewish family, the son of Ella (Greenwald) and Harry Royze, who owned a flooring store.[4] Rose attended Washington State University for one year prior to serving in the Navy during World War II. Upon returning from the war he received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1948 and his PhD in biochemistry in 1952, both from the University of Chicago.[5] He did his post-doctoral studies at NYU.[4]
Irwin (Ernie) trained several postdoctoral research fellows while at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. These included Art Haas,[8] the first to see Ubiquitin chains, Keith Wilkinson,[2] the one to first identify APF-1 as Ubiquitin, and Cecile Pickart.[9]
Published work
When Irwin Rose started on his prizewinning work on ubiquitin he was already very distinguished as an enzymologist.
Classical enzymology
Only a selection of Rose's very extensive work in this field is mentioned here.
In collaboration with Marianne Grunberg-Manago, Saul Korey and Severo Ochoa he investigated the Mg2+- or Mn2+-dependent formation of acetyl-CoA from acetate and ATP catalyzed by acetate kinase, an essential reaction for priming the tricarboxylate cycle,[10][11] describing the purification of the enzyme and measuring the equilibrium constant of the reaction.
With Edward O'Connell, Rose investigated the mechanisms of the reaction catalyzed by phosphoglucose isomerase[12] and, with Sidney Rieder, of triose phosphate isomerase[13]
With Jessie Warms, he studied the mechanism of hexokinase of sarcoma tumor,[14] finding that it was located in the mitochondria of liver and brain, and bound in accord with a Mg2+-dependent equilibrium.
He had a general interest in the role of magnesium in cells, and studied it on the basis of the equilibrium of the reaction catalyzed by adenylate kinase,[15] a complicated question, because numerous complexes of Mg2+, H+ and K+ with ATP, ADP and AMP need to be taken into account.
Starting from Ogston's theory, Rose[16] was concerned with the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed reactions, investigating various enzymes,[17] and later glutamine synthetase.[18] This was the topic of a review article written with Kenneth Hanson.[19]
Ubiquitin
After its discovery by Gideon Goldstein and colleagues in 1975,[20] ubiquitin was extensively studied by Rose, with Avram Hershko, Aaron Ciechanover, A. L. Haas and H. Heller,[21] one of many papers on the subject.
^Hershko, A.; Ciechanover, A.; Rose, I.A. (1979), "Resolution of the ATP-dependent proteolytic system from reticulocytes: a component that interacts with ATP", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 76 (7): 3107–3110, Bibcode:1979PNAS...76.3107H, doi:10.1073/pnas.76.7.3107, PMC383772, PMID290989.
^ abcIrwin Rose on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on December 8, 2004 Ubiquitin at Fox Chase
^Hershko, A.; Ciechanover, A.; Heller, H.; Haas, A.L.; Rose, I.A. (1980), "Proposed role of ATP in protein breakdown: conjugation of protein with multiple chains of the polypeptide of ATP-dependent proteolysis", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 77 (4): 1783–1786, Bibcode:1980PNAS...77.1783H, doi:10.1073/pnas.77.4.1783, PMC348591, PMID6990414.
^Hanson, K. R.; Rose, I. A. (1975). "Interpretations of enzyme reaction stereospecificity". Accounts of Chemical Research. 8 (1): 1–10. doi:10.1021/ar50085a001.
