Protein lactylation in health and diseases.
A newly discovered cellular modification involving lactate emerges as a regulatory mechanism with potential cancer treatment applications.
This STTT review comprehensively covers protein lactylation—a post-translational modification where lysine residues are modified by lactate-derived acyl groups—as an emerging epigenetic and metabolic regulatory mechanism relevant to cancer, immunity, and metabolic disease. The review catalogues known substrates, enzymatic writers and erasers, and discusses therapeutic opportunities, positioning lactylation modulation as a potential cancer treatment strategy.
What the study was
- Study design
- narrative_review
- Category
- cancer epigenetics
- Maturity
- Exploratory
- Journal
- Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy
Why it surfaced
Published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (IF~40+). Lactylation is an emerging field since 2019 Zhang et al. discovery with growing clinical relevance. Review without new experimental data; scored STANDARD pending more definitive validation.
A plain-language summary of published research — not medical advice. Talk to a clinician about your own care.