Surface accessibility of protein post-translational modifications

J Proteome Res. 2007 May;6(5):1833-45. doi: 10.1021/pr060674u. Epub 2007 Apr 12.

Abstract

Protein post-translational modifications are crucial to the function of many proteins. In this study, we have investigated the structural environment of 8378 incidences of 44 types of post-translational modifications with 19 different approaches. We show that modified amino acids likely to be involved in protein-protein interactions, such as ester-linked phosphorylation, methylarginine, acetyllysine, sulfotyrosine, hydroxyproline, and hydroxylysine, are clearly surface associated. Other modifications, including O-GlcNAc, phosphohistidine, 4-aspartylphosphate, methyllysine, and ADP-ribosylarginine, are either not surface associated or are in a protein's core. Artifactual modifications were found to be randomly distributed throughout the protein. We discuss how the surface accessibility of post-translational modifications can be important for protein-protein interactivity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acids / chemistry*
  • Databases, Protein
  • Protein Processing, Post-Translational*
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Proteins / metabolism
  • Surface Properties

Substances

  • Amino Acids
  • Proteins