Summary: Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Optimizing non-natural protein function with directed evolution
Eric M Brustad1
and Frances H Arnold1,2
Developing technologies such as unnatural amino acid
mutagenesis, non-natural cofactor engineering, and
computational design are generating proteins with novel
functions; these proteins, however, often do not reach
performance targets and would benefit from further
optimization. Evolutionary methods can complement these
approaches: recent work combining unnatural amino acid
mutagenesis and phage selection has created useful proteins
of novel composition. Weak initial activity in a computationally
designed enzyme has been improved by iterative rounds of
mutagenesis and screening. A marriage of ingenuity and
evolution will expand the scope of protein function well beyond
Mother Nature's designs.
Addresses
1
Division of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, California Institute of

Source: Arnold, Frances H. - Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology

Collections: Chemistry; Biology and Medicine