bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.14.439552; this version posted April 15, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Discovering the N-terminal Methylome by Repurposing of Proteomic Datasets Panyue Chen1, Tiago Jose Paschoal Sobreira2, Mark C. Hall3,4 and Tony Hazbun1,4* 1. Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 2. Bindley Bioscience Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 3. Department of Biochemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 4. Purdue Center for Cancer Research, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 * Corresponding author: Purdue University, HANS 235, 201 South State St, West Lafayette, IN 47907 Tel: 765-496-8228 Email:
[email protected] 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.14.439552; this version posted April 15, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Abstract Protein -N-methylation is an underexplored post-translational modification involving the covalent addition of methyl groups to the free -amino group at protein N-termini. To systematically explore the extent of -N-terminal methylation in yeast and humans, we reanalyzed publicly accessible proteomic datasets to identify N-terminal peptides contributing to the -N-terminome. This repurposing approach found evidence of -N-methylation of established and novel protein substrates with canonical N-terminal motifs of established - N-terminal methyltransferases, NTMT1/2 for humans, and Tae1 for yeast.