Protein palmitoylation—a lipid modification in which one or more cysteine thiols on a substrate protein are modified to form a thioester with a palmitoyl group—is a significant post-translational biological process. This process regulates the trafficking, subcellular localization, and stability of different proteins in cells. Since palmitoylation participates in various biological processes, it is related to the occurrence and development of multiple diseases. It has been well evidenced that the proteins whose functions are palmitoylation-dependent or directly involved in key proteins’ palmitoylation/depalmitoylation cycle may be a potential source of novel therapeutic drugs for the related diseases. Many researchers have reported palmitoylation of proteins, which are crucial for host-virus interactions during viral infection. Quite a few explorations have focused on figuring out whether targeting the acylation of viral or host proteins might be a strategy to combat viral diseases. All these remarkable achievements in protein palmitoylation have been made to technological advances. This paper gives an overview of protein palmitoylation modification during viral infection and the methods for palmitoylated protein detection. Future challenges and potential developments are proposed.

蛋白质棕榈酰化——一种脂质修饰，其中底物蛋白上的一个或多个半胱氨酸硫醇被修饰以形成具有棕榈酰基的硫酯——是一个重要的翻译后生物学过程。这个过程调节细胞中不同蛋白质的运输、亚细胞定位和稳定性。由于棕榈酰化参与多种生物过程，与多种疾病的发生发展有关。已经充分证明，功能依赖于棕榈酰化或直接参与关键蛋白质棕榈酰化/去棕榈酰化循环的蛋白质可能是相关疾病的新型治疗药物的潜在来源。许多研究人员报告了蛋白质的棕榈酰化，这对于病毒感染期间的宿主-病毒相互作用至关重要。相当多的探索集中在弄清楚靶向病毒或宿主蛋白的酰化是否可能是对抗病毒性疾病的策略。所有这些在蛋白质棕榈酰化方面的显著成就都归功于技术的进步。本文概述了病毒感染过程中的蛋白质棕榈酰化修饰以及棕榈酰化蛋白的检测方法。提出了未来的挑战和潜在的发展。