A Small-Molecule-Based Approach to Sense Codon-Templated Natural-Unnatural Hybrid Peptides. Selective Silencing and Reassignment of the Sense Codon by Orthogonal Reacylation Stalling at the Single-Codon Level

Genetic Code Expansion by Degeneracy Reprogramming of Arginyl Codons

The genetic code in most organisms codes for 20 proteinogenic amino acids or translation stop. In order to encode more than 20 amino acids in the coding system, one of stop codons is usually reprogrammed to encode a non-proteinogenic amino acid. Although this approach works, usually only one amino acid is added to the amino acid repertoire. In this study, we incorporated non-proteinogenic amino acids into a protein by using a sense codon. As all the codons are allocated in the universal genetic code, we destroyed all the tRNA(Arg) in a cell-free protein synthesis system by using a tRNA(Arg) -specific tRNase, colicin D. Then by supplementing the system with tRNACCU , the translation system was partially restored. Through this creative destruction, reprogrammable codons were successfully created in the system to encode modified lysines along with the 20 proteinogenic amino acids.

Recent developments of engineered translational machineries for the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids into polypeptides

Genetic code expansion and reprogramming methodologies allow us to incorporate non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs) bearing various functional groups, such as fluorescent groups, bioorthogonal functional groups, and post-translational modifications, into a desired position or multiple positions in polypeptides both in vitro and in vivo. In order to efficiently incorporate a wide range of ncAAs, several methodologies have been developed, such as orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA-synthetase (AARS)–tRNA pairs, aminoacylation ribozymes, frame-shift suppression of quadruplet codons, and engineered ribosomes. More recently, it has been reported that an engineered translation system specifically utilizes an artificially built genetic code and functions orthogonally to naturally occurring counterpart. In this review we summarize recent advances in the field of ribosomal polypeptide synthesis containing ncAAs.

Genetically encoded libraries of nonstandard peptides

The presence of a nonproteinogenic moiety in a nonstandard peptide often improves the biological properties of the peptide. Non-standard peptide libraries are therefore used to obtain valuable molecules for biological, therapeutic, and diagnostic applications. Highly diverse non-standard peptide libraries can be generated by chemically or enzymatically modifying standard peptide libraries synthesized by the ribosomal machinery, using posttranslational modifications. Alternatively, strategies for encoding non-proteinogenic amino acids into the genetic code have been developed for the direct ribosomal synthesis of non-standard peptide libraries. In the strategies for genetic code expansion, non-proteinogenic amino acids are assigned to the nonsense codons or 4-base codons in order to add these amino acids to the universal genetic code. In contrast, in the strategies for genetic code reprogramming, some proteinogenic amino acids are erased from the genetic code and non-proteinogenic amino acids are reassigned to the blank codons. Here, we discuss the generation of genetically encoded non-standard peptide libraries using these strategies and also review recent applications of these libraries to the selection of functional non-standard peptides.

Enzymatic N-methylaminoacylation of tRNA using chemically misacylated AMP as a substrate

Using "chemically misacylated AMP" which is photogeneratable, tRNA can be enzymatically acylated with N-methylamino acids in an efficiency comparable to that of the corresponding natural aminoacylation process with amino acids.