New strategies to identify protease substrates

Proteome dynamics is governed by transcription, translation, and post-translational modifications. Limited proteolysis is an irreversible post-translational modification that generates multiple but unique proteoforms from almost every native protein. Elucidating these proteoforms and understanding their dynamics at a system-wide level is of utmost importance because uncontrolled proteolytic cleavages correlate with many pathologies. Mass spectrometry-based degradomics has revolutionized protease research and invented workflows for global identification of protease substrates with resolution down to precise cleavage sites. In this review, we provide an overview of current strategies in protease substrate degradomics and introduce the concept of workflow, mass spectrometry-based and in silico enrichment of protein termini with the perspective of full deconvolution of digital proteome maps for precision medicine, and degradomics biomarker diagnostics.