title: Improving nature's enzyme active site with genetically encoded unnatural amino acids.
abstract: The ability to site-specifically incorporate a diverse set of unnatural amino acids (>30) into proteins and quickly add new structures of interest has recently changed our approach to protein use and study. One important question yet unaddressed with unnatural amino acids (UAAs) is whether they can improve the activity of an enzyme beyond that available from the natural 20 amino acids. Herein, we report the >30-fold improvement of prodrug activator nitroreductase activity with an UAA over that of the native active site and a >2.3-fold improvement over the best possible natural amino acid. Because immense structural and electrostatic diversity at a single location can be sampled very quickly, UAAs can be implemented to improve enzyme active sites and tune a site to multiple substrates.
authors.affiliation: Franklin and Marshall College, Department of Chemistry, P.O. Box 3003, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17604, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Sean P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Duffy
authors.forename: Kenneth R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Hess
authors.forename: Ryan A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Mehl
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D001483:Base Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D017931:DNA Primers; D004798:Enzymes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D055672:Static Electricity; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D017931:DNA Primers; D004798:Enzymes