Protein amino-terminal modifications and proteomic approaches for N-terminal profiling.

•N-terminal acetylation, pyroglutamate formation, N-degrons and proteolysis are reviewed.•N-terminomics provide comprehensive profiling of modification at protein N-termini in a proteome-wide manner.•We outline a number of established methodologies for the enrichment of protein N-termini through positive and negative selection strategies.•Peptidomics-based approach is beneficial for the study of post-translational processing of protein N-termini.