The ability to introduce fluorophores selectively into proteins provides a powerful tool to study protein structure, dynamics, localization, and biomolecular interactions both in vitro and in vivo. Here, we report a strategy for the selective and efficient biosynthetic incorporation of a low-molecular-weight fluorophore into proteins at defined sites. The fluorescent amino acid 2-amino-3-(5-(dimethylamino)naphthalene-1-sulfonamide)propanoic acid (dansylalanine) was genetically encoded in Saccharomyces cerevisiae by using an amber nonsense codon and corresponding orthogonal tRNA͞aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase pair. This environmentally sensitive fluorophore was selectively introduced into human superoxide dismutase and used to monitor unfolding of the protein in the presence of guanidinium chloride. The strategy described here should be applicable to a number of different fluorophores in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, and it should facilitate both biochemical and cellular studies of protein structure and function. molecular evolution ͉ fluorescent probes ͉ genetic code expansion ͉ protein design ͉ unnatural amino acids

We genetically encoded the photocaged amino acid 4,5-dimethoxy-2-nitrobenzylserine (DMNB-Ser) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae in response to the amber nonsense codon TAG. This amino acid was converted to serine in living cells by irradiation with relatively low-energy blue light and was used to noninvasively photoactivate phosphorylation of the transcription factor Pho4, which controls the cellular response to inorganic phosphate. When substituted at phosphoserine sites that control nuclear export of Pho4, blocks phosphorylation and subsequent export by the receptor Msn5 (ref. 2). We triggered phosphorylation of individual serine residues with a visible laser pulse and monitored nuclear export of Pho4-GFP fusion constructs in real time. We observed distinct export kinetics for differentially phosphorylated Pho4 mutants, which demonstrates dynamic regulation of Pho4 function. This methodology should also facilitate the analysis of other cellular processes involving free serine residues, including catalysis, biomolecular recognition and ion transport.

Here, we report a generally applicable PEGylation methodology based on the site-specific incorporation of para-azidophenylalanine into proteins in yeast. The azido group was used in a mild [3+2] cycloaddition reaction with an alkyne derivatized PEG reagent to afford selectively PEGylated protein. This strategy should be useful for the generation of selectively PEGylated proteins for therapeutic applications.

We report the genetic encoding of a noncanonical, spin-labeled amino acid in Escherichia coli. This enables the intracellular biosynthesis of spin-labeled proteins and obviates the need for any chemical labeling step usually required for protein electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) studies. The amino acid can be introduced at multiple, user-defined sites of a protein and is stable in E. coli even for prolonged expression times. It can report intramolecular distance distributions in proteins by double-electron electron resonance measurements. Moreover, the signal of spin-labeled protein can be selectively detected in cells. This provides elegant new perspectives for in-cell EPR studies of endogenous proteins.

Site-directed spin labeling (SDSL) in combination with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy allows studying the structure, dynamics, and interactions of proteins via distance measurements in the nanometer range. We here give an overview of available spin labels, the strategies for their introduction into proteins, and the associated potentials for protein structural studies in vitro and in the context of living cells.

A large number of amino acids other than the canonical amino acids can now be easily incorporated in vivo into proteins at genetically encoded positions. The technology requires an orthogonal tRNA/aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase pair specific for the unnatural amino acid that is added to the media while a TAG amber or frame shift codon specifies the incorporation site in the protein to be studied. These unnatural amino acids can be isotopically labeled and provide unique opportunities for site-specific labeling of proteins for NMR studies. In this perspective, we discuss these opportunities including new photocaged unnatural amino acids, outline usage of metal chelating and spin-labeled unnatural amino acids and expand the approach to in-cell NMR experiments.

The expansion of the genetic code with noncanonical amino acids (ncAA) enables the function of proteins to be tailored with high molecular precision. In this approach, the ncAA is charged to an orthogonal nonsense suppressor tRNA by an aminoacyl-tRNA-synthetase (aaRS) and incorporated into the target protein in vivo by suppression of nonsense codons in the mRNA during ribosomal translation. Compared to sense codon translation, this process occurs with reduced efficiency. However, it is still poorly understood, how the local sequence context of the nonsense codon affects suppression efficiency. Here, we report sequence contexts for highly efficient suppression of the widely used amber codon in E. coli for the orthogonal Methanocaldococcus jannaschii tRNA(Tyr)/TyrRS and Methanosarcina mazei tRNA(Pyl)/PylRS pairs. In vivo selections of sequence context libraries consisting of each two random codons directly up- and downstream of an amber codon afforded contexts with strong preferences for particular mRNA nucleotides and/or amino acids that markedly differed from preferences of contexts obtained in control selections with sense codons. The contexts provided high amber suppression efficiencies with little ncAA-dependence that were transferrable between proteins and resulted in protein expression levels of 70-110% compared to levels of control proteins without amber codon. These sequence contexts represent stable tags for robust and highly efficient incorporation of ncAA into proteins in standard E. coli strains and provide general design rules for the engineering of amber codons into target genes.

Well red: A protein-RNA crosslinker has been genetically encoded that can be controlled with red light, thus offering high penetration depths in biological materials. This should enable the discovery and mapping of transient protein-RNA interactions and enable the design of peptide- and protein-based drugs for RNA-targeted photodynamic therapy.