Metabolites affect cell growth in two different ways. First, they serve as building blocks for biomass accumulation. Second, metabolites regulate the activity of growth-relevant signaling pathways. They do so in part by covalently attaching to proteins, thereby generating post-translational modifications (PTMs) that affect protein function, the focus of this Perspective. Recent advances in mass spectrometry have revealed a wide variety of such metabolites, including lipids, amino acids, Coenzyme-A, acetate, malonate, and lactate to name a few. An active area of research is to understand which modifications affect protein function and how they do so. In many cases, the cellular levels of these metabolites affect the stoichiometry of the corresponding PTMs, providing a direct link between cell metabolism and the control of cell signaling, transcription, and cell growth.

代谢物以两种不同方式影响细胞生长。首先，它们是生物质积累的基础。第二，代谢产物调节与生长相关的信号通路的活性。它们部分地通过共价附于蛋白质来完成，从而产生影响蛋白质功能的翻译后修饰（PTM），这是本《透视》的重点。质谱的最新进展表明，这类代谢物种类繁多，包括脂质，氨基酸，辅酶A，乙酸盐，丙二酸和乳酸等。研究的一个活跃领域是了解哪些修饰会影响蛋白质功能及其作用方式。在许多情况下，这些代谢物的细胞水平会影响相应PTM的化学计量，从而在细胞代谢与细胞信号传导控制之间提供直接联系，