A metabolomics strategy for detecting protein-metabolite interactions to identify natural nuclear receptor ligands.

Nuclear receptors are ligand-regulated transcription factors that control a range of (patho)physiological processes. Lipids are the most common type of nuclear receptor ligands. Here, we utilize a metabolomics approach that detects protein-metabolite interactions to identify endogenous peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) ligands from tissue and cell extracts.