Abstract 2275 Integrating Chemical Tools to Interrogate Protein Methylation in Nuclei

Epigenetic regulations are involved in establishing cell-lineage diversity and errors in these processes have been linked to many diseases including cancer. Among the key biochemical modifications in epigenetics is protein methylation in nuclei. Elucidating diverse epigenetic functions of protein methylation in nuclei is pivotal toward elucidating their roles in normal physiology and disease states. My laboratory has developed various chemical tools to annotate the activities and effectors of protein methylation. For instance, we developed the Bioorthogonal Profiling of Protein Methylation (BPPM) with cofactor analogues for chemical labeling of methylome in live cells. We recently also developed the complementary technology to annotate the upstream methyltransferase activities and downstream effectors of designed methylation events. This presentation will highlight the recent advancements of these technologies and their implementation in the context of tumor malignancy and ESC pluripotency. This work was supported by the Cancer Center Support Grant (P30- CA008748) and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35GM131858).