Design of S-Allylcysteine in Situ Production and Incorporation Based on a Novel Pyrrolysyl-tRNA Synthetase Variant.

The noncanonical amino acid S-allyl cysteine (Sac) is one of the major compounds of garlic extract and exhibits a range of biological activities. It is also a small bioorthogonal alkene tag capable of undergoing controlled chemical modifications, such as photoinduced thiol-ene coupling or Pd-mediated deprotection. Its small size guarantees minimal interference with protein structure and function.

One-Pot Synthesis of Unprotected Anomeric Glycosyl Thiols in Water for Glycan Ligation Reactions with Highly Functionalized Sugars.

Chemical synthesis of oligosaccharide conjugates is essential for studying the functional relevance of carbohydrates, and this task would be facilitated considerably if reliable methods for the anomeric ligation of unprotected sugars in water were available. Here, a method for the preparation of anomeric glycosyl thiols from complex unprotected mono-, di-, and oligosaccharides is presented. By exploiting the neighboring-group effect of the 2-acetamido-group, 1,2-oxazolines are generated and converted into 1-glycosyl thioesters through treatment with 1-thioacids.

Residue-specific Incorporation of Noncanonical Amino Acids into Model Proteins Using an Escherichia coli Cell-free Transcription-translation System.

The canonical set of amino acids leads to an exceptionally wide range of protein functionality. Nevertheless, the set of residues still imposes limitations on potential protein applications. The incorporation of noncanonical amino acids can enlarge this scope.

Incorporation of Amino Acids with Long-Chain Terminal Olefins into Proteins.

The increasing need for site-specific protein decorations that mimic natural posttranslational modifications requires access to a variety of noncanonical amino acids with moieties enabling bioorthogonal conjugation chemistry. Here we present the incorporation of long-chain olefinic amino acids into model proteins with rational variants of pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase (PylRS). Nε-heptenoyl lysine was incorporated for the first time using the known promiscuous variant PylRS(Y306A/Y384F), and Nε-pentenoyl lysine was incorporated in significant yields with the novel variant PylRS(C348A/Y384F).

Cell-free expression with the toxic amino acid canavanine.

Canavanine is a naturally occurring noncanonical amino acid, which is analogous to arginine. It is a potent antimetabolite and natural allelochemic agent, capable of affecting or blocking regulatory and catalytic reactions that involve arginine. Incorporated into proteins at arginine positions, canavanine can be detrimental to protein stability and functional integrity.

Site-specific conjugation of 8-ethynyl-BODIPY to a protein by [2 + 3] cycloaddition.

We report a straightforward synthesis of 8-ethynyl-BODIPY derivatives and their potential as fluorescent labeling compounds using an alkyne-azide click chemistry approach. The ethynyl substituted BODIPY dyes at the meso-position were reacted under Cu(+) catalysis and mild physiological conditions in organic and biological model systems using benzyl azide and a Barstar protein which was selectively modified by a single amino acid substituted methionine at the N-terminus (Met1) → azidohomoalanine (Aha). Conjugation with the protein and the model azide was indicated by a significant blue shift upon formation of the triazole moiety system, which allowed easy distinction between free and coupled dyes.

Site-directed and global incorporation of orthogonal and isostructural noncanonical amino acids into the ribosomal lasso peptide capistruin.

Expansion of the structural diversity of peptide antibiotics was performed through two different methods. Supplementation-based incorporation (SPI) and stop-codon suppression (SCS) approaches were used for co-translational incorporation of isostructural and orthogonal noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) into the lasso peptide capistruin. Two ncAAs were employed for the SPI method and five for the SCS method; each of them probing the incorporation of ncAAs in strategic positions of the molecule.