Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications · 2011 · 76 citations · 14 references
Life SciencesGeneticsMolecular BiologyGenetic EngineeringProtein EngineeringProtein TranslationAmino Acid ProductionGenetic CodeProtein Expression EngineeringProtein SynthesisTranslation ElongationTranslational FidelityAmino AcidsBacterial Protein SynthesisGenetic Code EvolutionGenetic Code ReassignmentLysine BiosynthesisNon-essential Amino AcidsNoncanonical Amino AcidsSynthetic Genetic Code
The genetic encoding of synthetic or "non-natural" amino acids promises to diversify the functions and structures of proteins. We applied rapid codon-reassignment for creating Escherichia coli strains unable to terminate translation at the UAG "stop" triplet, but efficiently decoding it as various tyrosine and lysine derivatives. This complete change in the UAG meaning enabled protein synthesis with these non-natural molecules at multiple defined sites, in addition to the 20 canonical amino acids. UAG was also redefined in the E. coli BL21 strain, suitable for the large-scale production of recombinant proteins, and its cell extract served the cell-free synthesis of an epigenetic protein, histone H4, fully acetylated at four specific lysine sites.
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Programming cells by multiplex genome engineering and accelerated evolution
Harris H. Wang, Farren J. Isaacs, Peter A. Carr et al. · Nature · 2009 · 1.6K citations