An Expanding Repertoire of Protein Acylations

Protein post-translational modifications (PTMs) play key roles in multiple cellular processes by allowing rapid reprogramming of individual protein functions. Acylation, one of the most important PTMs, is involved in different physiological activities including cell differentiation and energy metabolism. In recent years, the progression in technologies, especially the antibodies against acylation and the highly sensitive and effective mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics, as well as optimized functional studies, greatly deepen our understanding of protein acylation. In this review, we give a general overview of the twelve main protein acylations (formylation, acetylation, propionylation, butyrylation, malonylation, succinylation, glutarylation, palmitoylation, myristoylation, benzoylation, crotonylation and 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation), including their substrates (histones and non-histone proteins), regulatory enzymes (writers, readers and erasers), biological functions (transcriptional regulation, metabolic regulation, subcellular targeting, protein-membrane interactions, protein stability and folding), and related diseases (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease and viral infection), to present a complete picture of protein acylations and highlight their functional significance in future research.