An outlook on protein S-acylation in plants: what are the next steps?

S-acylation, also known as palmitoylation, is the reversible post-translational addition of fatty acids to proteins. Historically thought primarily to be a means for anchoring otherwise soluble proteins to membranes, evidence now suggests that reversible S-acylation may be an important dynamic regulatory mechanism. Importantly S-acylation also affects the function of many integral membrane proteins making S-acylation an important factor to consider in understanding processes such as cell wall synthesis, membrane trafficking, signalling across
membranes and regulating ion, hormone and metabolite transport through membranes. This review summarises the latest thoughts, ideas and findings in the field and charts the direction of future work to enable progress to be made in understanding the role of this enigmatic regulatory protein modification.