Cell‐ing point: This study shows that MCoTI‐cyclotides can provide an ideal scaffold for the biosynthesis of large combinatorial libraries inside living E. coli cells. Coupled to an appropriate in vivo reporter system, this library may rapidly be screened, for example, by fluorescence‐activated cell sorting.

We present the in-vivo biosynthesis of wild-type sunflower trypsin inhibitor 1 (SFTI-1) inside E. coli cells using an intramolecular native chemical ligation in combination with a modified protein splicing unit. SFTI-1 is a small backbone cyclized polypeptide with a single disulfide bridge. A small library containing multiple Ala mutants was also biosynthesized and its activity was assayed using a trypsin-binding assay. This study clearly demonstrates the exciting possibility of generating large cyclic peptide libraries in live E. coli cells, and is a critical first step for developing in-vivo screening and directed evolution technologies using the cyclic peptide SFTI-1 as a molecular scaffold.

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