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Updated: May 21, 2026

A Facile Protocol to Generate Site-Specifically Acetylated Proteins in Escherichia Coli
Published on: December 9, 2017
N-terminal acetylation and other functions of Nα-acetyltransferases
Jolien Hollebeke1, Petra Van Damme, Kris Gevaert
1Department of Medical Protein Research, Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology-VIB, Ghent University, A. Baertsoenkaai 3, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Abstract:
Protein N-terminal acetylation by Nα-acetyltransferases (NATs) is an omnipresent protein modification that affects a large number of proteins. The exact biological role of N-terminal acetylation has, however, remained enigmatic for the overall majority of affected proteins, and only for a rather small number of proteins, N-terminal acetylation was linked to various protein features including stability, localization, and interactions. This minireview tries to summarize the recent progress made in understanding the functionality of N-terminal protein acetylation and also focuses on noncanonical functions of the NATs subunits.
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