Detecting ALDH2 activity in live cells <i>via</i> conditional metabolic labeling.

ABSTRACT: Detecting enzyme activity that catalyzes subtle functional group transformations in live cells remains a major challenge. We introduce a conditional metabolic labeling strategy for enzymatic activity detection (cMLEAD), which harnesses cellular metabolic pathways to deliver indirect yet reliable activity readouts. Unlike traditional metabolic labeling approaches relying on nonspecific incorporation of tagged biomolecules, cMLEAD employs a tagged precursor whose metabolic incorporation is strictly dependent on specific enzymatic activity, effectively transforming a metabolic labeling event into an enzyme-activity measurement. Using aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) as a proof of concept, we demonstrate the robustness of the strategy. cMLEAD for ALDH2 employs azido-tagged acetaldehyde, metabo

SUBMITTER: Lv W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12366639 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature