title: Protein engineering with unnatural amino acids.
abstract: Protein engineering has become an extensively used tool in many fields, allowing us to probe protein function, characterize proteins using a range of biophysical techniques, chemically modify proteins and improve protein function for medical and industrial applications. It is now possible to site-specifically incorporate unnatural, or non-canonical, amino acids (uAAs) into proteins, which has had a major impact on protein engineering. In this review, we discuss the recent technical developments in the field and how uAA-protein engineering is becoming an increasingly valuable molecular tool, with the unique chemical functionalities of some uAAs allowing a range of otherwise impossible experiments to be performed. Finally, the impediments that have resulted in a relatively small number of recent studies in which uAA-protein engineering has been used to improve protein function are discussed, alongside some of the recent technical developments that may serve to overcome these obstacles.
authors.affiliation: Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
authors.forename: William H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Gottfried
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Otting
authors.forename: Colin J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Jackson
mesh_terms: D000596:Amino Acids / Q000737:chemistry*; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000138:chemical synthesis; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D011506:Proteins / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D000596:Amino Acids; D011506:Proteins; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins