Studying post-translational modifications with protein interaction networks

At least 46 interactome studies, broad at proteome scale or biologically more focused, have together mapped about 75,000 human protein-protein interactions (PPIs). Many of the studies addressed local interactome data paucity analyzing specific homeostatic and regulatory systems, with recent focus demonstrating the involvement of post-translational protein modification (PTM) enzyme families in a wide range of cellular functions. These datasets provided insight into binding mechanisms, the dynamic modularity of complexes or delineated combinatorial enzymatic cascades. Furthermore, the combined study of PPI and PTM dynamics has begun to reveal conditional rewiring of molecular networks through PTM-mediated recognition events. Taken together these studies highlight the utility of local and global interaction networks to functionally prioritize the many changing PTMs mapped in human cells.