Defects in the Assembly of Ribosomes Selected for β-Amino Acid Incorporation

Ribosome engineering has emerged as a promising field in synthetic biology, particularly concerning the production of new sequence-defined polymers. Mutant ribosomes have been developed that improve the incorporation of several non-standard monomers including D-amino acids, dipeptides, and β-amino acids into polypeptide chains. However, there remains little mechanistic understanding of how these ribosomes catalyze incorporation of these new substrates. Here we probed the properties of a mutant ribosome–P7A7–evolved for betterin vivoβ-amino acid incorporation throughin vitrobiochemistry and cryo-electron microscopy. Although P7A7 is a functional ribosomein vivo, it is inactivein vitro, and assembles poorly into 70S complexes. Structural characterization revealed large regions of disorder in the peptidyltransferase center and nearby features, suggesting a defect in assembly. Comparison of RNA helix and ribosomal protein occupancy with other assembly intermediates revealed that P7A7 is stalled at a late stage in ribosome assembly, explaining its weak activity. These results highlight the importance of ensuring efficient ribosome assembly during ribosome engineering towards new catalytic abilities.