Interactomic affinity profiling by holdup assay: Acetylation and distal residues impact the PDZome-binding specificity of PTEN phosphatase

Protein domains often recognize short linear protein motifs composed of a core conserved consensus sequence surrounded by less critical, modulatory positions. PTEN, a lipid phosphatase involved in phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, contains such a short motif located at the extreme C-terminus capable to recognize PDZ domains. It has been shown that the acetylation of this motif could modulate the interaction with several PDZ domains. Here we used an accurate experimental approach combining high-throughput holdup chromatographic assay and competitive fluorescence polarization technique to measure quantitative binding affinity profiles of the PDZ domain-binding motif (PBM) of PTEN. We substantially extended the previous knowledge towards the 266 known human PDZ domains, generating the full PDZome-binding profile of the PTEN PBM. We confirmed that inclusion of N-terminal flanking residues, acetylation or mutation of a lysine at a modulatory position significantly altered the PDZome-binding profile. A numerical specificity index is also introduced as an attempt to quantify the specificity of a given PBM over the complete PDZome. Our results highlight the impact of modulatory residues and post-translational modifications on PBM interactomes and their specificity.