title: Generation of effective libraries by neutral drift.
abstract: Neutral drift is a recently developed experimental technique used to identify superior starting points for protein engineering. Neutral drift explores accessible sequence space by repeated rounds of mutagenesis and selection to maintain wild-type function. Mutations that are largely neutral for the native function accumulate, and those that are highly detrimental are purged, yielding a library of high diversity and quality. This technique is useful in situations where laboratory evolution is at a dead end, i.e., when the enzyme activity intended for evolution proves recalcitrant to improvements or is too low to be detected.
authors: Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, 327-2185 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z4.
authors: Miriam
authors: M
authors: Kaltenbach
authors: Nobuhiko
authors: N
authors: Tokuriki
mesh_terms: D019020:Directed Molecular Evolution; D015723:Gene Library; D040961:Genetic Drift; D016296:Mutagenesis / Q000235:genetics*; D009154:Mutation