The absence of efficient mass spectrometry-based approaches for the large-scale analysis of protein arginine methylation has hindered the understanding of its biological role, beyond the transcriptional regulation occurring through histone modification. In the last decade, however, several technological advances of both the biochemical methods for methylated polypeptide enrichment and the computational pipelines for MS data analysis have considerably boosted this research field, generating novel insights about the extent and role of this post-translational modification.

Here, we offer an overview of state-of-the-art approaches for the high-confidence identification and accurate quantification of protein arginine methylation by high-resolution mass spectrometry methods, which comprise the development of both biochemical and bioinformatics methods. The further optimization and systematic application of these analytical solutions will lead to ground-breaking discoveries on the role of protein methylation in biological processes.

缺乏用于蛋白质精氨酸甲基化大规模分析的基于质谱的有效方法，阻碍了对其生物学作用的理解，这超出了通过组蛋白修饰而产生的转录调控。然而，在过去的十年中，甲基化多肽富集的生化方法和MS数据分析的计算管道的几项技术进步极大地推动了这一研究领域，对这种翻译后修饰的范围和作用产生了新的见解。

在这里，我们提供了通过高分辨率质谱方法对蛋白质精氨酸甲基化进行高置信度鉴定和准确定量的最新方法的概述，其中包括生物化学和生物信息学方法的发展。这些分析解决方案的进一步优化和系统应用将导致有关蛋白质甲基化在生物过程中作用的开创性发现。