1. Synthetic Biology Tools for Targeted Incorporation of Non-Canonical Amino Acids into Cellular Proteins
- Author
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Mahdavi, Alborz, Mahdavi, Alborz, Mahdavi, Alborz, and Mahdavi, Alborz
- Abstract
Proteins mediate many essential functions in cells, and methods to profile cellular proteins are of great interest for biological discovery. Whereas all of the cells in an organism share the same genome, the landscape of proteins (the proteome) varies between different cell types and over the lifetime of the organism. Rapid progress in mass spectrometers is enabling the detailed analysis of cellular proteomes. Whereas better instruments increase coverage, throughput, and measurement precision, new chemical reporters, metabolic tags, and synthetic biology techniques are required to enhance the specificity and spatiotemporal resolution of protein labeling and detection. This work introduces methods for cell-selective proteome analysis through the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids into newly synthesized proteins. Chapter I provides an overview of current technologies for translational profiling and proteomic analysis in cells. Strategies for the residue-specific incorporation of non-canonical amino acids and bioorthogonal non-canonical amino acid tagging are discussed. Chapter II introduces a new approach for the identification of secreted bacterial proteins from infected host cells using non-canonical amino acid labeling. This work demonstrates an application of cell-selective proteome labeling. Selectivity is achieved through controlled expression of a mutant aminoacyl tRNA synthetase (aaRS) enzyme that enables the metabolic incorporation of a non-canonical amino acid. Ideally, the activity of multiple genes should be used to genetically control the extent of proteome labeling in cells. This is useful because many cell states are characterized by the activity of multiple genes and identified based on the expression of several proteins. Therefore chapter III introduces a novel approach to control proteome labeling as a function of multiple promoters using a genetically encoded AND gate based on a bisected methionyl-tRNA synthetase, a class I
- Published
- 2015