Beyond Histones: Unveiling the Functional Roles of Protein Acetylation in Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes

Lysine acetylation plays a crucial role in cellular processes and is found across various evolutionary organisms. Recent advancements in proteomic techniques revealed the presence of acetylation in thousands of non-histone proteins. Here, we conducted extensive meta-analysis of 48 acetylomes spanning diverse organisms, including archaea, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, worms, plants, insects, crustacea, fish, and mammals. Our analyzes revealed a predominance of a single acetylation site in a protein detected in all studied organisms, and proteins heavily acetylated, with > 5–10 acetylated-sites, were represented by Hsp70, histone, or transcription GTP-biding domain. Moreover, using gene enrichment approaches we found that ATP metabolic processes, glycolysis, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase pathways and oxidative stress response are among the most acetylated cellular processes. Finally, to better explore the regulatory function of acetylation in glycolysis and oxidative stress we used aldolase and superoxide dismutase A (SODA) enzymes as model. For aldolase, we found that K147 acetylation, responsible to regulate human enzyme, conserved in all phylogenic clade, suggesting that this acetylation might play the same role in other species; while for SODA, we identified many lysine residues in different species present in the tunnel region, which was demonstrated for human and Trypanosoma cruzi, as negative regulator, also suggesting a conserved regulatory mechanism. In conclusion, this study provides insights into the conservation and functional significance of lysine acetylation in different organisms emphasizing its roles in cellular processes, metabolic pathways, and molecular regulation, shedding light in the extensive function of non-histone lysine acetylation.