33As a novel post-translational modification (PTM), lysine 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation 34 (Khib) has been found to play a role in active gene transcription in mammalian cells 35 and yeast, but the function of Khib proteins in plants remains unknown. In this study, 36 we used western blot to demonstrate that Khib is an evolutionarily-conserved PTM in 37 wheat and its donators, with the highest Khib abundance occurring in hexaploidy wheat. 38 Additionally, global profiling using affinity purification and mass spectroscopy of 2-39 hydroxyisobutyrylome revealed that there were 3348 lysine modification sites from 40 1074 proteins in common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Moreover, bioinformatic data 41 indicated that Khib proteins participate in a wide variety of biological and metabolic 42 pathways. Immunoprecipitation and western blot confirmed that Khib proteins had an 43 in vivo origin. A comparison of Khib and other major PTMs revealed that Khib proteins 44 were simultaneously modified by multiple PTMs. Using mutagenesis experiments and 45Co-IP, we demonstrated that Khib on K206 is a key regulatory modification of 46 phosphoglycerate kinase enzymatic activity and found that de-Khib on K206 affects 47 protein interactions. Furthermore, Khib production of low-molecular-weight proteins 48 was a response to the deacetylase inhibitors nicotinamide and trichostatin A. This study 49 provides evidence that enhances our current understanding of Khib in wheat plants, 50 including the cooperation between this PTM and metabolic regulation. 51 Introduction 54 Protein post-translational modification (PTM) can change the charge, conformation, 55 and molecular weight of proteins by adding chemical groups to the amino acid residues 56 of a protein that can also expand the biological functions of the protein [1]. PTMs have 57 been found to play a vital role in diverse biological processes by regulating protein 58 function [2]. Lysine acetylation (Kac) is an important PTM that neutralizes positively-59 charged lysine residues; previous studies of Kac have mainly focused on nuclear 60 proteins [3, 4]. Using mass spectrometry, a high abundance of non-histone proteins has 61 been extensively characterized recently [5−9]. Kac is currently known to regulate 62 diverse protein properties, including subcellular localization, DNA-protein interactions, 63 protein stability, protein-protein interactions, and enzymatic activity [7, 8, 10, 11]. With 64 the help of high sensitivity mass spectrometry, there are currently 9 novel lysine PTMs 65 reported, including formylation (Kfor), crotonylation (Kcr), butyrylation (Kbu), 66 succinylation (Ksu), malonylation (Kma), propionylation (Kpr), glutarylation (Kglu), 67 β-hydroxybutyrylation (Kbhb), and 2-hydroxyisobutyrylation (Khib), and the catalog 68 is still growing [12−18]. These novel PTMs have been mainly found in mammalian and 69 yeast cells, and also in plants, such as Arabidopsis thaliana [19], rice [20−23], and 70 tobacco [19, 24]. Increasing evidence suggests that these new types of PTMs are 71 ...