DeKinomics pulse-chases kinase functions in living cells

Cellular context is crucial for understanding the complex and dynamic kinase functions in health and disease. Systematic dissection of kinase-mediated cellular processes requires rapid and precise stimulation ('pulse') of a kinase of interest, as well as global and in-depth characterization ('chase') of the perturbed proteome under living conditions. Here we developed an optogenetic 'pulse-chase' strategy, termed decaging kinase coupled proteomics (DeKinomics), for proteome-wide profiling of kinase-driven phosphorylation at second-timescale in living cells. We took advantage of the 'gain-of-function' feature of DeKinomics to identify direct kinase substrates and further portrayed the global phosphorylation of understudied receptor tyrosine kinases under native cellular settings. DeKinomics offered a general activation-based strategy to study kinase functions with high specificity and temporal resolution under living conditions. Weng et al. developed a photocaged lysine-based gain-of-function strategy termed DeKinomics to systematically dissect kinase activity with high specificity and temporal resolution under living conditions.