Fine-tuning Interaction between Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetase and tRNA for Efficient Synthesis of Proteins Containing Unnatural Amino Acids

Authors

Nanxi Wang, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Tong Ju, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Wei Niu, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Jiantao Guo, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2015

Citation

ACS Synth. Biol. 2015, 4, 207−212

Comments

© 2014 American Chemical Society. This is an open access article published under an ACS AuthorChoice License,

Abstract

By using a directed evolution approach, we have identified aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase variants with significantly enhanced activity for the incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins in response to the amber nonsense codon in bacteria. We demonstrated that the optimization of anticodon recognition of tRNA by aminoacyltRNA synthetase led to improved incorporation efficiency that is unnatural amino acid-specific. The findings will facilitate the creation of an optimized system for the genetic incorporation of unnatural amino acids in bacteria.