Crosstalk between cysteine and lysine modifications: Integrating redox and metabolic regulation

Protein post-translational modifications (PTMs) on amino acid residues enable dynamic cellular responses to changes in metabolic and redox state. Cysteine and lysine are among the most extensively modified amino acid residues, with both undergoing a diversity of acylation and oxidative modifications. Indeed, proximal (<10 Å) cysteine and lysine residues may form integration nodes for crosstalk between metabolism and redox homeostasis pathways. This review highlights the interaction of proximal Cys-Lys residues, including influence on residue pKa by local electrostatics, cysteine-to-lysine transfer of PTM moieties, and covalent crosslinking. We discuss candidate Cys-Lys regulatory pairs in proteins involved in redox regulation, proteostasis, metabolic adaptation and inflammation. We further utilize computational modeling to identify proximity between cysteine and lysine residues in proteins known to be regulated by acylation and oxidative PTMs, and to demonstrate changes in these distances and local electrostatic potential due to lysine acetylation. Finally, we review how mass spectrometry-based proteomics and machine-learning PTM predictive tools can enable the identification, validation, and interpretation of proximal Cys-Lys interactions that regulate cellular responses to oxidative challenge and metabolic flux.