Weird PTMs in Kupffer cells!

 

We've always found the liver to be pretty boring from the context of the easy to detect PTMs. Kupffer cells, which is a made up word that can only be written (and NEVER SAID OUT LOUD) are one of the cell types in the liver.

Turns out there ARE PTMs there! These people found a bunch of acylations!

Hmmm....okay...these are immortalized mouse Kupffer cells....which is still cool, but I do think that maybe there should be some caution in extrapolating these results to a more normal terminal cell type. The proteins were extracted, digested and anti-acylation antibodies were bound to beads for the enrichments. 

Interestingly, the enriched peptides were separated on C12 columns they packed in house, which I thought was a typo, but that's what they were. Despite what the illustrations in the manuscript suggest, an Orbitrap Velos was used for analysis, but most of the instrument method, -like whether the MS/MS spectra were high resolution or ion trap spectra - is a secret the authors chose to not divulge to readers anwhere in the manuscript. If you're actually curious, the data is publicly available. I am curious because the localization of a lactylation on a lysine would be a little more exciting to me if the fragmentation spectrum for the PSM was a high resolution accurate mass one. However, a stellar student in our program is defending today and I need to get in my car. The secret of the instrument method will remain unsolved.