Activity-based protein profiling of microbes

• Published in: Current opinion in chemical biology Vol. 24; pp. 139 - 144
• Main Authors: Sadler, Natalie C, Wright, Aaron T
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2015
• Subjects: Bacteria - chemistry; Bacteria - metabolism; Bacterial Proteins - analysis; Bacterial Proteins - metabolism; Fungal Proteins - analysis; Fungal Proteins - metabolism; Fungi - chemistry; Fungi - metabolism; Proteomics - methods
• ISSN: 1367-5931; 1879-0402
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2014.10.022

•ABPP enabled proteomics and imaging provides insight into microbial physiology.•Microbe functions, drug interactions, and pathways are revealed by ABPP.•ABPP characterizes microbes involved in disease, bioenergy and ecology.•The ABPP approach allows for multiple analysis of the same sample type. Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) in conjunction with multimodal characterization techniques has yielded impactful findings in microbiology, particularly in pathogen, bioenergy, drug discovery, and environmental research. Using small molecule chemical probes that react irreversibly with specific proteins or protein families in complex systems has provided insights in enzyme functions in central metabolic pathways, drug–protein interactions, and regulatory protein redox, for systems ranging from photoautotrophic cyanobacteria to mycobacteria, and combining live cell or cell extract ABPP with proteomics, molecular biology, modeling, and other techniques has greatly expanded our understanding of these systems. New opportunities for application of ABPP to microbial systems can enhance protein annotation, characterize protein activities in myriad environments, and reveal signal transduction and regulatory mechanisms in microbial systems.