proteasome
noun
pro·te·a·some
| \ ˈprō-tē-ə-ˌsōm
\
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Medical Definition of proteasome
: a hollow, cylindrical cellular structure that is a complex of proteases involved in the selective degradation of intracellular proteins and especially proteins marked for proteolysis by ubiquitin
Tagged proteins are then fed into the proteasome, a barrel-shaped multi-protein complex that chops proteins down into their component amino acids for reuse.— Caroline Williams, New Scientist, 2 Sept. 2006