蛋白质的翻译后修饰对于生命体执行正常的生理功能具有十分重要的作用,是蛋白质科学研究的重要内容.目前研究蛋白质修饰的方法主要有质谱法、亲和层析等,然而由于蛋白质修饰研究的复杂性,迫切需要发掘新的技术手段.电化学方法理论成熟、应用广泛,在生命科学许多领域发挥着越来越重要的作用.蛋白质的体外修饰必将导致蛋白质特定位点基团的变化,可以利用巧妙设计的电化学方法予以表征和分析,以期探明修饰对蛋白质结构和功能的影响.此外,又可以利用电化学定量分析的独特优势快速准确地测定蛋白质修饰中涉及的相关酶活.正因为如此,蛋白质体外修饰的电化学研究已引起越来越多的关注.本文以作者课题组近期研究工作为主,结合国内外同行的相关代表性工作,介绍电化学方法在蛋白质修饰方面的近期研究进展,并探讨了今后的发展方向和趋势.
Protein post-translational modification is a key physiological procedure,which has received more and more research interests from the scientists not only in protein science but also in some other fields.The usually employed techniques for the study of protein modification include mass spectroscopy,affinity chromatography,etc.Considering the complexity of protein modification and the urgent demand of such kind of study,it is highly required to develop new techniques to perform more studies.Electrochemical methods,which have been widely used in chemical study and analysis,are playing an increasingly important role in many fields of biological studies.The modification of protein may induce chemical changes of specific groups,which may be characterized by using electrochemical methods via various approaches.Therefore,the changes of protein structure and function through protein modification can be revealed and the enzyme activity involved in protein modification may be detected rapidly,sensitively and accurately by taking the advantages of electrochemical methods,and consequently more and more achievements have been obtained.Based on some recent studies in the group of the authors and also some interesting works from other groups,this article reviews the progress of electrochemical study on protein modification,so as to exchange the research ideas with the colleagues in electrochemical community and some others related to protein science.