Tales of protein tails and the proteases that generate them
Proteolysis is one of the mechanisms that allows cells to alter their proteome in response to different conditions or signals. A proteolytic process can result in either protein degradation, which removes proteins and breaks them down to peptides and amino acids, or a fine and specific proteolytic process which produces precise modifications to protein chains. With over 560 proteases in humans, and with proteases encompassing ~2% of the gene content of many organisms, proteolysis affects the fate of every protein. Malfunctions of the proteolysis are implicated in multiple human diseases. In this talk I will describe some of the proteomic methods that we developed and how we utilized them to characterize and profile active proteases, define different proteolytic products and to identify novel protease substrates.