Towards detecting regulatory protein–metabolite interactions

New mapping approaches have greatly expanded our view on the cellular landscape of protein-metabolite interactions. These methods either identify proteins interacting with a selected metabolite or vice versa. By reviewing recent developments, we found that comprehensive mapping of the protein-metabolite interaction space can be achieved eventually using existing methods, amongst which proteomics techniques to assess cell wide protein property changes in response to metabolite treatment currently offer the highest potential. Since we expect major advances in mapping protein-metabolite interactions in the near future, the challenge shifts to the identification of interaction functionality, for which currently only few specialized methods are available.