Abstract
ADP-ribosylation regulates numerous fundamental cellular processes in health and disease. However, the limited availability of suitable tools and methods prevents the identification and characterization of certain components of the ADP-ribosylation signaling network and, consequently, efficient utilization of their biomedical potential. Identification of ADP-ribose (ADPr) readers has been particularly impeded by challenges associated with the development of ADPr-based enrichment probes. These difficulties were finally overcome in several recent studies describing various approaches to identifying ADPr readers in an unbiased, proteome-wide manner. In this review we discuss these different strategies and their limitations, benefits and drawbacks, and summarize how these technologies contribute to a dissection of ADP-ribosylation signaling networks. We also address unmet technological needs and future directions to investigate interactions with ADPr linkages.