The completion of genome projects of multiple organisms has revealed an enormous number of unknown protein products. The field of proteomics has now become focused on finding ways to elucidate the cellular function of these proteins and their possible role in pathological processes. A relatively new approach to address global protein function has been termed activity-based proteomics or chemical proteomics. This method makes use of small molecules that can covalently attach to catalytic residues in an enzyme active site. The selectivity of the chemically reactive group allows specific proteins or protein subsets to be tagged, purified and analyzed, providing insight in their biochemical roles. As a result this technique has the potential to accelerate the process of identification of new drug targets.
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Verhelst et al. (2005) studied this question.