Compounds and methods for detection of enzymes that remove formyl, succinyl, methyl succinyl or myristoyl groups from epsilon-amino lysine moieties

A method of determining whether at least one molecule inhibits an enzyme that removes a formyl moiety from an ε-amino of a lysine, the method comprising:

• (a) mixing the enzyme and a molecule with a compound having the formula
• wherein
• SIG is a fluorophore or luminescent moiety, and
• m is an integer from 1 to 10;
• (b) incubating the enzyme-molecule-compound mixture to allow the enzyme to remove the formyl moiety in the absence of the molecule;
• and
• (c) determining whether the formyl moiety is removed from the compound to an equivalent degree that the formyl moiety would be removed from the compound in the absence of the molecule,
• wherein the failure of the removal of the formyl moiety from the compound to an equivalent degree as in the absence of the molecule indicates that the molecule is an inhibitor of the enzyme.