Addicting diverse bacteria to a noncanonical amino acid
January 18th, 2016 by Drew S Tack
Nature Chemical Biology 12, 138 (2016). doi:10.1038/nchembio.2002
Authors: Drew S Tack, Jared W Ellefson, Ross Thyer, Bo Wang, Jimmy Gollihar, Matthew T Forster & Andrew D Ellington
Engineered orthogonal translation systems have greatly enabled the expansion of the genetic code using noncanonical amino acids (NCAAs). However, the impact of NCAAs on organismal evolution remains unclear, in part because it is difficult to force the adoption of new genetic codes in organisms. By reengineering TEM-1 β-lactamase to be dependent on a NCAA, we maintained bacterial NCAA dependence for hundreds of generations without escape.