This process can be reversed, meaning that the acetyl group can be removed by lysine deacetylases (KDACs).
[2] There are seven human N-terminal acetyltransferases discovered to date, named NatA, NatB, NatC, NatD, NatE, NatF, and NatH.
The target proteins of NatB are those that have N-termini starting with the amino acids MD, ME, MN and MQ.
NatD consists of one catalytic unit called NAA40 with high substrate selectivity, targeting only histones H2A and H4 and some proteins starting with SGRGK.
[6][7] The targets of NatF are MI-, ML-, MF-, MY- and MK-starting membrane proteins.
[16] In human and plant cells, NatA can also protect proteins from degradation by ubiquitin ligases and thereby stabilize these.
The first case of NatA defect in 2011 had severe consequences, involving developmental delay, heart failures, aged appearance and a short life span.
[20] Pathogenic variants have also been found in the coding region of NAA20, where the patients have developed various symptoms like speech delay, epilepsy and cognitive impairment due to weakening of the NatB complex formation.
[1] Due to the large number of proteins having these modifications, often malfunction in the N-terminal acetyltransferases the human body have so called pleiotropic effects.