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  2. Lysine L-lactylation is the dominant lactylation isomer induced by glycolysis

Lysine L-lactylation is the dominant lactylation isomer induced by glycolysis

  • Nat Chem Biol. 2024 Jul 19. doi: 10.1038/s41589-024-01680-8.
Di Zhang # 1 2 Jinjun Gao # 3 4 5 Zhijun Zhu # 6 Qianying Mao 7 8 Zhiqiang Xu 9 Pankaj K Singh 10 Cornelius C Rimayi 10 Carlos Moreno-Yruela 11 Shuling Xu 12 Gongyu Li 12 13 Yi-Cheng Sin 14 Yue Chen 14 Christian A Olsen 11 Nathaniel W Snyder 10 Lunzhi Dai 15 Lingjun Li 16 17 Yingming Zhao 18
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China. zhangdi@pku.edu.cn.
  • 2 Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China. zhangdi@pku.edu.cn.
  • 3 Ben May Department for Cancer Research, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
  • 4 State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China.
  • 5 Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China.
  • 6 Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
  • 7 State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Gene Research, School of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  • 8 Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  • 9 National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics and General Practice Ward/International Medical Center Ward, General Practice Medical Center, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
  • 10 Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, Center for Metabolic Disease Research, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
  • 11 Center for Biopharmaceuticals and Department of Drug Design and Pharmacology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  • 12 School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
  • 13 Research Center for Analytical Science and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, China.
  • 14 Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, The University of Minnesota at Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
  • 15 National Clinical Research Center for Geriatrics and General Practice Ward/International Medical Center Ward, General Practice Medical Center, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. lunzhi.dai@scu.edu.cn.
  • 16 Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA. lingjun.li@wisc.edu.
  • 17 School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA. lingjun.li@wisc.edu.
  • 18 Ben May Department for Cancer Research, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA. yingming.zhao@uchicago.edu.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

Lysine L-lactylation (Kl-la) is a novel protein posttranslational modification (PTM) driven by L-lactate. This PTM has three isomers: Kl-la, N-ε-(carboxyethyl)-lysine (Kce) and D-lactyl-lysine (Kd-la), which are often confused in the context of the Warburg effect and nuclear presence. Here we introduce two methods to differentiate these isomers: a chemical derivatization and high-performance liquid chromatography analysis for efficient separation, and isomer-specific Antibodies for high-selectivity identification. We demonstrated that Kl-la is the primary lactylation isomer on histones and dynamically regulated by glycolysis, not Kd-la or Kce, which are observed when the glyoxalase system was incomplete. The study also reveals that lactyl-coenzyme A, a precursor in L-lactylation, correlates positively with Kl-la levels. This work not only provides a methodology for distinguishing other PTM isomers, but also highlights Kl-la as the primary responder to glycolysis and the Warburg effect.

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