Bacteria have evolved a variety of effector proteins to facilitate their survival and proliferation within the host environment. Continuous competition at the host–pathogen interface has empowered these effectors with unique mechanism and high specificity toward their host targets. The rich repertoire of bacterial effectors has thus provided us an attractive toolkit for investigating various cellular processes, such as signal transductions. With recent advances in protein chemistry and engineering, we now have the capability for on-demand control of protein activity with high precision. Herein, we review the development of chemically engineered bacterial effectors to control kinase-mediated signal transductions, inhibit protein translation, and direct genetic editing within host cells. We also highlight future opportunities for harnessing diverse prokaryotic effectors as powerful tools for mechanistic investigation and therapeutic intervention of eukaryotic systems.

细菌已经进化出多种效应蛋白，以促进它们在宿主环境中的生存和增殖。宿主-病原体界面的持续竞争使这些效应器具有独特的机制和对宿主目标的高度特异性。因此，丰富的细菌效应器库为我们提供了一个有吸引力的工具包，用于研究各种细胞过程，例如信号转导。随着蛋白质化学和工程的最新进展，我们现在能够以高精度按需控制蛋白质活性。在这里，我们回顾了化学工程细菌效应器的发展，以控制激酶介导的信号转导、抑制蛋白质翻译和直接在宿主细胞内进行基因编辑。