Not all (non-canonical) amino acids are made equal
Replacing methionine with one of its analogs in proteins is becoming routine for the team from the Laboratory of Structure and Function of biomolecules. Therefore, they expected they would be able to expand the approach to other methionine analogs, predict the substitution ratio based on the known kinetic parameters of methionyl-tRNA synthetase, a key enzyme in the process, and even acquire proteins with higher analog content by employing bacteria with a blocked methionine synthesis pathway for expression. Their latest article, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, revealed that these expectations were far from reality and how, in complete accordance with Murphy’s laws, methionine substitution is more efficient in modified proteins with fewer practical applications.
Published Oct 01, 2023